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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 





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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

























































ROSE AND LAVENDER. 


02Rorits tije Same lutfjor. 


MISS TOOSEY’S MISSION, AND 
LADDIE. 

i6mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 

TIP-CAT. 

i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 

OUR LITTLE ANN. 

i6mo. Cloth. #1.00. 

PEN. 

i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 

LI L. 

i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 

ZOE. 

i6mo. Cloth. 60 cents. 


ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 

BOSTON. 






RUTH. 


“Ruth was cutting the lavender off the great bush; the air was full of the 
sweet, old-fashioned, homely perfume, and she had a great sheaf of the cut 
spears in her apron/' — Page 144. 




OSE AND 



AVENDER. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


“MISS TOOSEY’S MISSION,” “LADDIE,” “TIP-CAT,” 
“OUR LITTLE ANN,” “PEN,” “LIL,” 

AND “ZOE.” 






BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1891. 


O 




Copyright , t8qt, 

By Roberts Brothers. 



•j *> 

-> ~> 


'V>< 


5&niberstt)j Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. Friends . . , 7 

II. Lavender 19 

III. Rose 34 

IV. Miss Featherly’s Workroom . . 52 

V. Sunday 64 

VI. Market-Day 76 

VII. Ruth's Birthday 96 

VIII. A Pair of Shoes Ill 

IX. Ruth’s Birthday 129 

X. Ruth’s Help * . . . 140 

XI. Bank Holiday 155 

XII. Retribution 175 

XIII. Winter 190 

XIV. Christmas Market 207 

XV. Rosie’s Story 219 


VI 


Contents. 


Chapter Page 

XVI. Mrs. Trevor’s Help 235 

XVII. Joe’s Birthday 254 

XVIII. Lost 267 

XIX. The Search 286 

XX- Sweetest Lavender 299 


ROSE AND LAVENDER. 


CHAPTER I. 

FRIENDS. 

Two graves grass-green beside a gray church tower, 
Wash’d with still rains and daisy blossomed; 

Two children in one hamlet born and bred 
So runs the round of life from hour to hour. 

Tennyson 

The scent of lavender always brings back 
to my memory a cottage garden at Milling 
with a great bush of that fragrant plant grow- 
ing near the cottage door, and conjures up 
before my mind’s eye stout, buxom Mrs. 
Martin, with little Ruth Tilbury in close 
attendance, putting out her laces and fine 
things to dry on it. 

Nothing in the world but trouble would 
ever have made Mrs. Martin and Mrs. 


8 


Rose and Lavender . 


Tilbury (Ruth's mother) friends. They were 
neighbors, to be sure, and very near neigh- 
bors too, being under one roof, and having 
to share the same brick path leading from 
the gate to their respective doors, which 
were close together. But being neighbors 
does not by any means make people friends, 
especially when they are as different in 
every point as were Mrs. Martin and Mrs. 
Tilbury. 

They were both young, and had been mar- 
ried about the same time, and each had one 
little child, and their husbands both worked 
for Farmer Cartright, but beyond this there 
was not the smallest similarity between 
them. Mrs. Martin had been in service be- 
fore her marriage, Mrs. Tilbury had been a 
factory-girl. Mrs. Martin was a perfect pat- 
tern of neatness, both in her house and per- 
son ; there was never a speck of dust to be 
seen in the one, nor a stitch wanting in the 


Friends . 


9 


other, and her taste in dress was plain al- 
most to severity. Jenny Tilbury, on the 
other hand, was a poor manager, as is too 
often the case with factory -girls ; she had 
never learned before she married to sweep a 
room or set a stitch, but she managed, as 
she expressed it, to muddle along somehow, 
which, perhaps, gives as good an idea of the 
state of her cottage as any words of mine 
could do. She had been reckoned very 
pretty when Dick Tilbury married her, and 
she liked a bit of finery to set oft her good 
looks, and she did not trouble herself if the 
finery were cheap and tawdry, or even rag- 
ged and not quite clean. Mrs. Martin liked 
to keep herself to herself, — a plan of life 
which seemed to J enny intolerably dull, her 
own company being the last she had any 
fancy for, — and many a morning did she 
spend with her arms on the gate, chattering 
first to one passer-by and then another, while 


10 


Rose and Lavender. 


Mrs. Martin’s sensible arms were hard at 
work in the soapsuds, and Will’s shirts were 
hung out on the line one after another in 
silent reproof of the empty line opposite. 

Then the way Jenny treated her baby was 
a constant subject of righteous indignation 
to Mrs. Martin’s soul, letting it crawl about 
perfectly filthy most of the day, and then 
dressing it up in all the smart things she 
could lay her hands on, and dancing it about 
the place, keeping it up to all hours of the 
night. And then the feeding of it ; whatever 
Jenny had the baby shared, and there was 
generally some sticky sweet or rubbishy cake 
to be found in its grubby little hand, which, 
in spite of injudicious treatment, was so 
much more substantial and healthy looking 
than the delicate little hand of Joe Martin, 
who was a poor, puny little creature, and by 
no means a good practical illustration of his 
mother’s wise theories on the treatment of 


Friends. 


11 


babies. There was no doubt which husband 
had the more comfortable home to come back 
to; and Dick Tilbury, coming in wet and 
tired and hungry, would sometimes feel a 
pang of envy at the cheerful glimpse he had, 
through the Martins’ door, of bright fire and 
clean-swept hearth and supper laid ready, an 
appetizing whiff of which greeted his nos- 
trils. The chances were that the fire was 
out in his own cottage, and Jenny gadding, 
and bread and cheese to be hunted up for 
himself if he wanted any supper, or did not 
think the “Jolly Farmer ” more attractive. 

But the advantages were not quite all on 
one side, and sometimes I think it was 
Martin who felt envious when it was a 
muddy day, and a thoughtless step on the 
missus’ spotless bricks had brought on him 
the vials of his wife’s wrath, and he heard 
Tilbury’s jolly laugh from next door, where 
muddy boots were a matter of course, and 


12 


Rose and Lavender . 


clean bricks and sharp words were alike 
unknown. 

But from that day in April when the 
accident at the gravel pit happened, Ellen 
Martin and Jenny Tilbury were friends as 
close as only trouble could make them. 
Every incident of that day was stamped 
firmly on the two women’s hearts ; all sorts 
of every-day trifles looked back upon through 
the lurid light of trouble rose to importance. 
There was that patch on Dick’s shirt that 
J enny had forgotten over and over again, — 
forgotten, I am afraid, sometimes on pur- 
pose, ,as she hated needlework and shirked it 
as much as possible. But she was glad to 
think that that day she did it, — not what 
Mrs. Martin would have called “ doing, ” very 
cobbled and drawn and dirty, but somehow, 
in the dark days that followed, she liked to 
dry her eyes on that patch and hold it to her 
aching heart. She had got so cross over the 


Friends. 


13 


doing of it, and more than once had been 
tempted to throw it down and take baby out 
into the beautiful, bright spring day; but 
she resisted the impulse, and had just fin- 
ished it, “ after a fashion,” when Mrs. Martin 
came to the door with a strange, scared face 
with the first news of the accident. 

Poor Ellen Martin had not any special 
little bit of comfort like Jenny’s patch to 
lay to her heart, though, for the matter of 
that, her Will’s shirts were always mended 
in first-rate style. She, poor soul, had a 
little extra thorn of self reproach, for she 
had been sharp to him, when he set ou£ that 
morning, over a tiresome trick he had of 
shaking out the ashes of his pipe on the 
clean doorstep. She was not sentimental as 
a rule, but she kissed that old pipe which 
had been such a fruitful source of contention 
between them when they brought Will home 
that evening. 


14 


Rose and Lavender . 


Yes; that was what it came to. Those 
two strong men who went out in the morning 
in health and vigor, — Dick with that shrill 
whistle in his lips, picking up his grubby 
baby from the doorstep and pretending to 
toss her over the hedge to the child’s raptur- 
ous delight, and Will with the deprecating 
look on his good-natured red face which it 
always wore after a snubbing from his wife, 
— they were both brought home in the even- 
ing with the strong young life crushed out 
of them by the fall of gravel in the pit where 
they were digging. 

It was some miles away from home, and 
no one rightly knew how the news first came. 
It seemed to be in the air, and the first hint 
of it was in some words Ellen heard spoken 
by some men in a cart. It was something 
about Kelsey gravel-pit and an accident that 
caught her ear, which was not generally 
open to casual words of passers by; but this 


Friends. 


15 


seemed to take her breath away with a sharp 
fear, and as we have said, she went in next 
door with a sudden craving for sympathy, 
which she would hardly have believed herself 
capable of an hour before, least of all from 
such a thoughtless, shiftless creature as 
Jenny. 

They were not left long in doubt; they 
had not time to persuade themselves that 
those casual words had no meaning, or, at 
any rate, none personally for them. A cart 
stopped at the' gate, and Farmer Cartright 
came in, — a kind-hearted, good old man, and 
terribly upset and agitated himself, but try- 
ing his utmost to keep his voice under con- 
trol, and break it to these two poor women 
that they were widows. 

It is a cruel process as a rule, that “ break- 
ing” a piece of bad news; it is kindly 
meant, but even in the most skilful hands it 
often inflicts great extra suffering, and done 


16 


Bose and Lavender . 


in a blundering way, as in this case, it is 
simple torture. Parmer Cartright’s assumed 
cheerfulness did not deceive either of the 
women, and his pretended admiration for the 
crocuses on the Martins’ side of the path 
(he ‘called them dahlias, by the way, in his 
agitation) was almost unheard, so plainly 
between each clumsy, well-meant word 
sounded the hollow note of the overwhelm- 
ing bad news that was to follow. 

It was curious, the effect on the two 
women when the worst was told, quite the 
opposite to what might have been expected 
from each. It was quiet, self-contained 
Ellen Martin who gave way to violent, hys- 
terical grief, casting herself down upon that 
threshold that would never be soiled again 
by the passing of her husband’s foot, and 
calling aloud for her Will with endearing 
words of which she had been all too sparing 
during his life; while giddy, flighty, excita- 


Friends . 


17 


ble Jenny Tilbury, losing sight of her own 
desolation, took her poor neighbor into her 
arms and coaxed and comforted her, quieted 
fretful little Joe, made up the fire, and got 
the cup of tea that is so unfailing a resource 
to womankind in times of affliction. It was 
then the friendship began between them. 
How could those two ever quarrel who had 
clung together, sick and cold, listening for 
the wheels of the cart that was bringing 
those two poor crushed bodies home; who 
had followed side by side two coffins carried 
through the April sunshine; who had stood 
by the two graves in the yew tree’s shadow ? 

People said that Jenny would go back to 
her own people and the factory work, and most 
likely marry again, for she was still young 
and pretty; but the two women decided to 
keep together, and as Ellen had been laundry- 
maid before she married, and there seemed 

a good opening for such work in Milling, 
2 


18 


Rose and Lavender. 


they resolved to try to get some washing. 
There was much sympathy felt in the place 
for the two young widows, and a subscrip- 
tion was raised to buy a mangle and set up 
an ironing-stove for them; and I think, if 
Mrs. Martin had not been the first-rate 
ironer she was, they would not have wanted 
work, so great was the desire to help them 
and the two little fatherless children. 


Lavender. 


19 


CHAPTER II. 

LAVENDER. 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove ; 
In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts 

oflove * Tennyson. 

Eighteen years have elapsed since that 
accident at the Kelsey gravel-pits. Mrs. 
Martin has quite a reputation in the neigh- 
borhood for her good washing, and Ruth 
Tilbury is growing up into just such another 
first-rate laundry woman. 

Poor, sickly Mrs. Tilbury had never been 
much help to her, and as years went on, 
became less and less so. Though she had 
borne up so bravely at the time, so much 
better than any one would have expected, 
the blow seemed to tell on her both in 
mind and body. She lost her good looks 


20 


Rose and Lavender . 


and her spirits, and became what the peo- 
ple called “a poor creature, ” sitting over 
the fire cosseting up little Joe, who was 
a sickly, delicate child, given to bad at- 
tacks of; bronchitis in the winter, and need- 
ing more care than his mother, fond as she 
was of him, could find time to give him. 
So, after all, it was a mutual accommoda- 
tion, and Mrs. Martin was glad to do Mrs. 
Tilbury’s share of the washing and ironing 
as long as Joe was nursed and looked after 
and there was not his little fretful cry to 
distract her from her work and take the 
energy out of her. 

It was quite difficult for strangers to be- 
lieve that Joe was Mrs. Martin’s child, and 
Ruth Mrs. Tilbury’s; they used to declare 
that some mistake must have been made, and 
the babies changed in their cradles. Ruth, 
even in features, was a little like Mrs. 
Martin, and in her rather thick-set, substan- 


Lavender . 


21 


tial build; but no doubt the real similarity 
was in her ways, and the steady, matter-of- 
fact manner which the child had picked up 
in their constant companionship. Indeed, it 
was quite amusing to see her, when only a 
little thing of five or six, taking Joe to 
school and seeing that he did not get his feet 
wet or forget to put on his comforter, with 
all the responsible, anxious airs of a mother, 
though she was in reality nearly a year 
younger than the boy. 

He was small and delicate-looking, which 
was, perhaps, what made him seem like Mrs. 
Tilbury, and he had that plaintive look in 
the eyes that ill-health gives, and a little 
fretful droop of the mouth that was to be 
seen sometimes in her. 

He had a sweet voice, and was in the 
church choir as often as those constant colds 
and weakness in the chest would allow. 

He was a great favorite with Mr. Silvy, 


22 


Rose and Lavender. 


the schoolmaster and organist, who encour- 
aged the boy’s love of music and gave him 
lessons on the harmonium, and it was to 
him that J oe confided his ambition of having 
a harmonium of his own. 

To this end the schoolmaster encouraged 
the laying-by of pence that would otherwise 
have found their way to the sweet-shop, and 
at one time took charge of the little hoard 
himself, as J oe, in spite of his ambition, was 
a poor hand at saving, and could not resist 
encroaching on his capital when the book- 
hawker came round or a show put up on the 
green. But nevertheless, if Ruth had not 
taken the matter in hand, I do not think 
that that neat little instrument in its walnut- 
wood case would ever have found its way to 
Mrs. Martin’s cottage. It stood in the place 
of honor, under the window, and was kept 
carefully dusted by the proud mother’s 
hands ; and very imposingly it grunted forth 


Lavender. 


23 


hymn tunes on Sunday evenings to the ad- 
miration of the group collected under the 
yew-tree outside to listen to “Mrs. Martin’s 
Joe playing away beautiful.” 

Not that Ruth was at all fond of music, 
or, indeed, knew one tune from another, — a 
fact which made her occasionally an exas- 
perating companion to musical Joe; but she 
was fond of Joe, and could hear his voice 
through all the shrill treble and ponderous 
bass of the Milling choir; or even at the 
choir festival, when choirs from all the coun- 
try round came to Milling in imposing array ; 
and anything Joe had set his heart on Ruth 
thought must be arrived at somehow, how- 
ever much it might cost. 

She was much better at saving, too, than 
Joe, having sensible views, not derived from 
her mother, as to sweets, and no tempta- 
tion to spend money on books or wild-beast 
shows, and she often received little presents 


24 


Rose and Lavender. 


when she took the clothes home to the differ- 
ent houses, impressing people as such a capa- 
ble, steady-going little woman of business. 

At first sight it might seem as rather a 
sacrifice of Ruth’s carefully hoarded little 
savings to spend them all on what would be 
.for Joe’s gratification alone. But there we 
should be making a great mistake, as, 
though from the very first it was always 
called Joe’s harmonium, and Ruth would 
not have ventured to put down one of the 
keys, it afforded her the greatest satisfaction 
and pride. When it first arrived and was 
unpacked, and put in the place of honor 
under the window, she could do nothing but 
stand and look at it, and when the first 
rather tremulous and not very decided chord 
sounded under Joe’s nervous hands, there 
was quite a lump in her throat, and dimness 
in her eyes, with much the same sort of feel- 
ing that a peal of the grandest harmony 


Lavender . 


25 


might awaken in the heart of a born musi- 
cian. She liked now and then, in the in- 
tervals of washing or ironing, to lay her 
hand for a minute on the shining wood, 
always taking care, after doing so, to rub 
away any finger-marks, real or imaginary, 
and leave it brighter than it was before. 
She always cherished the belief that that 
harmonium was superior to any other in the 
neighborhood, just as in later years, when a 
great London organist visited Milling, and 
played rare and stately music, she listened 
with indifference, not unmixed with con- 
tempt, to what she thought so inferior to 
Joe’s performances. 

But music was only Joe’s pastime, not his 
serious business, as you may tell if you go 
up the brick path between the lines of swing- 
ing wet sheets, for in Mrs. Tilbury’s window 
is a notice, — “ J. Martin, Shoemaker. Re- 
pairs neatly executed,” — and inside may be 


26 


Rose and Lavender . 


seen Joe at work at his bench, whistling 
away like a bird, — a sound very grateful to 
the three women in the next cottage, full of 
steam and the smell of soapsuds. 

In the first days of their bereavement, and, 
indeed, till the children were grown up, one 
cottage had been enough for the two families ; 
but when J oe was out of his apprenticeship 
with Mr. Sharpe the shoemaker, and set up 
in business for himself, it was decided to 
take on the old cottage, which had been the 
Tilburys’, and which happened then to be to 
let, and make that his workshop. He could 
not work all day among the steam and soap- 
suds ; many of the colds of his boyhood were 
to be attributed to that, and “besides,” Mrs. 
Martin would say to Mrs. Tilbury, with a 
knowing look, “Joe ’ll be wanting to marry 
some day, and then the house will be all 
ready for him, and you and me, Jenny, will 
have to settle down and take care of one an- 


Lavender . 


27 


other, he?”— though it did not appear evi- 
dent from her words what would become of 
Ruth when this came about, or why she should 
not continue to take care of her mother. 

The truth was, it was always taken for 
granted that when Joe married Ruth would 
be his wife ; and many a little thing was put 
by with a view to wRat they called “ by and 
by,” or “the young folks,” or “next door,” 
which both mothers understood to mean 
Joe’s and Ruth’s marriage. 

I think the young people took it for 
granted too, though it was never put into 
actual words between them; but when they 
talked of the future, which was not very 
often, it was always a future together. “ I ’ll 
tell you what we ’ll do, Ruth, in a few 
years ; ” or, “ When I ’m an old man, Ruth, 
I’ll get you to do so and so.” 

Ruth was too practical and matter-of-fact 
to dwell much on the future, but she entered 


28 


Rose and Lavender . 


readily into Joe’s plans, and never cast a 
doubt on her being there to carry them out 
with him; while as for Joe, Ruth was so 
entirely part of his life that it would have 
been as difficult for him to imagine the 
future without her as the garden without the 
great bush of lavender by the door. 

But on a certain Sunday in June the idea 
became more substantial in the minds of all 
of them. 1 don’t quite know why it was 
that special J une Sunday ; whether it was the 
beautiful weather, the sun shining, and the 
birds singing, that put love and marriage 
into people’s heads, or whether it was the 
banns being called, at morning service, of a 
Milling girl who had been at school with 
Ruth and a young man no older than Joe. 

“ Dear me ! how folks is getting married, 
to be sure ! ” Mrs. Tilbury said, with a little 
sigh of memory of the time when the banns 
of her and her Dick were called. 


Lavender . 


29 


“ She won’t make much of a wife for him, ” 
Mrs. Martin answered ; “ she thinks of noth- 
ing but gadding and gaying. ” 

Or whether it was that Ruth had on a new 
dress that Mrs. Martin thoroughly approved, 
of rather a dull lavender color, which would 
wash like a rag, — as who should know better 
than Mrs. Martin? — and made in a thorough, 
serviceable way, “without all the frills and 
fallals most girls is so fond of, and set every 
stitch herself,” which, to Mrs. Martin’s eyes, 
gave it a style and elegance no Parisian mil- 
liner could have imparted. But plain and 
simple as it was it certainly suited the girl, 
who, though by no means pretty, was never- 
theless pleasant to look upon that Sunday, 
in her neat dress, with her clear skin and 
smooth hair, and kind, smiling eyes. So 
Joe, looking across the table at her, was 
well inclined to agree with his mother’s 
remark, — “Well, now, Ruth, I ain’t one to 


30 


Rose and Lavender . 


flatter, but that dress do become you nicely ; ” 
and after dinner he followed her out into the 
garden, where she was shaking the crumbs 
out of the table-cloth, and kept her talking 
there a minute or two, — a proceeding which 
caused the two mothers to exchange glances 
of meaning. 

“ They ’re a bit young to think of it yet 
awhile,” said Mrs. Tilbury; “but there, to 
be sure ! I were n’t eighteen when Dick 
came after me, and Ruth ’ll be nineteen 
come July.” 

“It won’t do no harm for them to think 
about it a bit,” said Mrs. Martin, who had 
been made a little uneasy by Mr. Partlet, a 
middle-aged widower, with six children, ex- 
pressing admiration for Ruth’s sense and 
skill in ironing shirt-fronts. But she would 
not have breathed a word of her uneasiness 
on this score to Mrs. Tilbury, as there was 
no doubt that to marry her Joe was the 


Lavender. 


31 


greatest felicity possible for any girl, and 
she would not have liked Ruth’s mother to 
think for a moment that she could have done 
better. 

Joe had picked two or three sprigs of 
lavender off the bush, only just coming into 
flower. “It matches your dress, Ruth,” he 
said; and he looked at her “kind of funny 
like,” as she described it to herself, remem- 
bering the little episode, as she did oftener 
than its very trifling character seemed to 
warrant ; “ I think you ’re a bit like lavender 
yourself, always good and pleasant.” And 
he held out the little posy to her. 

“ Me like lavender ? ” she said, looking 
him straight in the face. “ Lor ! J oe, what 
an idea ! And you did n’t ought to pick that 
lavender neither, as was promised to Mrs. 
Jones to put among her linen; and it ain’t 
near fit to pick yet awhile.” 

He turned away impatiently, and tossed 


32 


Rose and Lavender. 


the half-blown lavender away among the 
cabbage plants. You might as well expect 
sentiment of any kind from the gate-post as 
from Ruth. 

“ Whatever are you looking for, Ruth ? ” 
her mother said that evening. “Have you 
been and dropped something in the garden ? 
What have you lost? Nothing of no ac- 
count, is it? Can’t you leave it till to- 
morrow ? ” Mrs. Tilbury had a way of going 
on asking questions without waiting for an 
answer, which was rather a relief sometimes 
when any one did not wish to reply; and 
Ruth did not seem ready with her explana- 
tion as she shaded the candle with her hand, 
looking for something among the cabbages 
in the garden. Whatever it was, it could 
not have been, as Mrs. Tilbury said, of 
much account, for she did not renew the 
search next morning; and it was a pity to 
have wetted the sleeve of her new dress with 


Lavender . 


33 


the dew from the cabbages, and to have got 
a smear of mud on the front breadth. “ And 
I wish Joe wouldn’t bring such rubbish in 
with him,” Mrs. Martin said, tossing a little 
withered bunch of flowers into the fire, “ lit- 
tering up the place. Why, bless the gi rls it 
were n’t nothing but some bits of dead flow- 
ers;” as Ruth made an ineffectual attempt 
to rescue them. 


3 


34 


Rose and Lavender. 


CHAPTER III. 

ROSE. 


Half light, half shade, 

She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 
A Rose in roses. 


Tennyson. 


It was that same Sunday afternoon that 
Rose Bailey came over to Milling. She was 
a niece of Mrs. Tilbury, and had come over 
now and then as a little child to spend the 
day and play with Ruth and J oe. But of late 
years they had seen nothing of her, and now 
when she came up the path and stood for a 
moment hesitating in the porch before the^ 
open door, with the monthly roses making a 
frame for her, and the blue June sky as a 
background, none of the party recognized her. 

She made a pretty picture as she stood 
there, — one of the party thought he had never 


Rose . 


35 


seen a prettier ; she might have been one of 
the roses herself with her pretty pink dress 
and a little flush on her cheek as she glanced 
shyly into the room, at Mrs. Martin looking 
up through her spectacles a trifle fiercely 
from the somewhat dry Sunday book she was 
reading aloud, — at the startled face of Mrs. 
Tilbury, who had been nodding very evi- 
dently two minutes before, and now woke 
with a start, feeling nervously to find out if 
her cap were on one side and her temporary 
oblivion noticed by the reader, — at Ruth, 
who had been trying to hide her mother’s 
nodding behind her own substantial person, 
leaning forward with more apparent interest 
than, I am afraid, she really felt, — and at 
Joe, who had the hymn-book on his knee 
under the table, and was finding out the 
tunes for the evening, unsuspected by his 
mother. 

“Why, if it ain’t Rosie Bailey!” Mrs. 


36 


Rose and Lavender . 


Martin exclaimed. “ Come in, child ; you ’re 
quite a stranger.” 

“ Bless me!” said Mrs. Tilbury, “how 
she ’ve grown, and don’t she favor her 
father! Why, I could almost believe as 
’twere George himself standing there.” 

Which, as Rosie’s father was a stout, 
middle-aged man, who at the best of times 
had never been endowed with outward per- 
sonal attractions, showed great powers of 
imagination in Mrs. Tilbury, and found no 
sympathy in Joe. 

“ And how are all the folks at home ? I 
ain’t heard nothing of them for ever so long. 
There, you ’ll take off your hat and stop to 
tea, won’t you? Why didn’t you come a 
little sooner and have a bit of dinner with 
us ? There, Ruth, take her hat up and lay 
it on the bed. My ! what a pretty little hat 
it is, ain’t it now ? ” went on Mrs. Tilbury, 
with a sparkle of her old love for pretty 


Rose. 


37 


things and finery which did not find much 
gratification nowadays in her daughter’s and 
Mrs. Martin’s sober tastes. “Now I war- 
rant this is the very latest thing. I ain’t 
seen nothing like it, and the Miss Powyses 
up at the Hall had n’t nothing near so 
stylish. 

“ But perhaps you ’d like to go upstairs 
with Ruth and tidy your hair a bit ? ” she 
added, looking a little doubtfully at the soft 
fair curls on the girl’s forehead, that were 
certainly very pretty, but very different from 
Ruth’s straight parting, with not a hair out 
of place on either side, and feeling sure that 
Mrs. Martin would disapprove. 

So the two girls went upstairs together, 
and though Rosie did a good deal in front of 
the looking-glass with a hairpin and comb, 
pulling one way and pushing another, I do 
not think the result was much nearer Mrs. 
Martin’s ideal of neatness than when the 


38 


Rose and Lavender. 


little coquettish hat trimmed with roses was 
first taken off. 

Joe thought the girls would never come 
down, so long did that tidying process take ; 
and Mrs. Tilbury, too, grew quite impatient, 
and called up the stairs to know what they 
were about. 

Just then Rosie was examining the fit of 
Ruth’s dress, — a fit which not an hour ago 
had been considered perfectly satisfactory by 
the wearer and all her family, but which 
now, in contrast with Rosie’s dainty frock, 
looked clumsy and awkward. 

“It wants just a little taking up on the 
shoulder, and just a plait here to make 
it sit.” 

Rosie had been apprenticed to a dress- 
maker, and under her skilful little fingers 
no doubt Ruth’s dress would have received a 
style in which at present it was altogether 
wanting. 


Rose . 


39 


But somehow Ruth never liked that dress 
quite so well again, or felt so contented with 
the fit of it. 

When they came down there was much to 
tell Aunt Jenny of family matters; how 
Father had moved away from Medington to 
a town in the north of England, where he 
had got better wages than he had had at the 
factory at Medington, and where, too, his 
two sons, Tom and George, had got work at 
the same factory with him. 

“They wanted me to come,” Rosie said. 

She looked so pretty as she sat by Mrs. 
Tilbury’s side on the dark oak settle, that 
Joe could not keep his eyes off her, and she 
did not seem in the least to notice how he 
kept staring at her, so engrossed was she, ap- 
parently, in talking to her aunt; though I 
am not so sure as Joe was that she was so en- 
tirely unconscious of his admiring glances. 

“They wanted me to Come,” she said, 


40 


'Rose and Lavender. 


“and Mother made quite a piece of work 
about it; but I was only just out of my time 
with Miss Featherly, and she bad agreed to 
take me on as improver and perhaps, after 
a time, as a regular skirt-hand, as she 
thinks I ’m pretty good at draping. It’s not 
every girl gets such a chance, she ’s that 
particular as to who she takes, and it seemed 
a pity to lose such an opening. Father said 
he did n’t mind about that, and that he ’d be 
bound I ’d get a situation at Dulborough ; but 
Miss Featherly talked him over, for she 
seemed quite set on my staying.” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Tilbury, “I’m not sur- 
prised as your mother did n’t fancy leaving 
you behind like that; she always thought a 
terrible deal of you.” 

“She was put about and fretted a deal. 
She hadn’t been well, and it made her low- 
spirited like and dull, and she fancied I ’d 
be getting into all sorts of mischief if she 


Rose. 


41 


was n’t by to look after me, — as if, ” added 
the girl, with a pretty little toss of the head, 
“ I was n’t able to take care of myself ! ” 

“ Then who are you stopping with ? ” 

“ Oh, I ’ve gone indoors hand to Miss 
Featherly. It ain’t like home, of course, — 
there ’s no place like home ; and just at first 
I could n’t abide it, and I ’d more than once 
made up my mind to write to Mother and 
say I was coming home after all, but I ’m 
getting used to it now, and one gets one’s 
liberty, and after all that ’s the great thing. ” 
Ruth, listening, not critically, but with 
admiration almost as unbounded as Joe’s, 
wondered what this liberty was for which it 
was worth while sacrificing home and Mother 
and putting up with all the discomforts 
which Rosie described^ at Miss Featherly’s, 
— the close workroom with the gas burning 
sometimes all day, the crowded, ill -ventilated 
bedroom, the general want of comfort and 


42 


Rose and Lavender . 


cleanliness, the scanty and badly cooked 
meals, the long hours when some mourning 
or ball order was on hand. 

Ruth wondered if she herself could be said 
to have this liberty; she certainly did not 
work half as hard at the wash-tub and 
ironing-board as Rose did in the workroom. 
She never remembered a day when she had 
worked after eight in the evening, and 
though, to be sure, she got up earlier in the 
morning, she did it of her own free will, not 
being a lie-a-bed, and if she got on with her 
work in the morning it was sooner done with 
in the afternoon. 

And as to liberty, she did pretty well as 
she pleased; of course, there were some 
things that her mother and Mrs. Martin 
(especially Mrs. Martin) would not like her 
to do ; but then she never wished to do those 
things, so what good would greater liberty 
be to her? 


Rose . 


43 


And while Ruth pondered the matter of 
liberty, Rosie chattered away to Mrs. 
Tilbury. 

“ 1 was mothersick after they were gone. 
I was always such a girl for my mother. 
The young ladies at Miss Featherly’s made 
such game of me about it, but I couldn’t 
help it; one doesn’t make one’s self, and 
that ’s my way. I could n’t bear — no, nor 
I can’t yet — to go down Mill Street, pass 
the old house, and see other folks going in 
and out; and the first Sunday when I went 
to St. Luke’s and sat all by myself 1 made 
quite a silly of myself, and went back such a 
guy that I had to pretend that I had a cold 
in my head to keep the young ladies from 
chaffing. But I haven’t been inside St. 
Luke’s since.” 

“ Where do you go, then ? ” asked Mrs. 
Martin. 

“Well, when we’ve worked very late the 


44 


Rose and Lavender. 


night before, we ’re that tired that we ’re 
glad of another hour or two in bed, and Miss 
Feather ly does n’t mind how late we are 
on Sundays. She ’s really very kind, Miss 
Featherly is, I will say that. 4 Take it easy, 
my dear,’ she says; ‘you work hard all the 
week, and you deserve a good rest on 
Sunday. ’ ” 

Mrs. Martin’s lips pursed themselves up 
a little in disapproval at this, and Rosie 
went on. 

“I generally, most Sundays, manage to 
go to St. John’s. It’s such a nice church; 
all the best dressed people go there, and 
Miss Featherly often says one can pick 
up all sorts of good ideas about trim* 
mings at church if one keeps one’s eyes 
open. ” 

An ominous, disapproving little cough 
from Mrs. Martin suddenly reminded Mrs. 
Tilbury that it was getting on for tea-time, 


Rose. 


45 


and Ruth had to bustle about to get the 
kettle boiling while Mrs. Martin made the 
toast. 

Joe rather sheepishly invited Rosie to 
come and look round the garden, and though 
she begged to be allowed to make the toast 
instead of Mrs. Martin, or to help Ruth put 
out the tea-things, she allowed herself to be 
persuaded, and went out into the sunshine, 
putting a little embroidered handkerchief 
over her head to keep off the sun, in a man- 
ner that seemed to Joe exquisitely becoming, 
but which Mrs. Martin characterized as 
“ stuff -a- rubbish.’’ 

I think that Rose Bailey was really struck 
with the beauty of that June day, — the blue 
sky above with its soft masses of white 
cloud, the fresh green on tree and hedge, 
and the roses and honeysuckle, stocks and 
columbines, on either side of the little 
brick path. 


46 


Bose and Lavender . 


After the close workroom at Miss Feath- 
erings, out of the dingy windows of which 
nothing could be seen but the gray wall of 
the opposite house, and after the narrow and 
not over clean streets of Medington, the 
sweet, pure country was very pleasant just 
for an hour or so, though, of course, it would 
have been a very different thing to have 
lived there. 

But perhaps she said a little more than 
she really felt in its praise, because she 
saw how it pleased Joe, who thought the 
roses were redder and the honeysuckle 
sweeter and the sky above them bluer be- 
cause she praised them. 

But what took her fancy more than any- 
thing else was Joe’s little apple-tree at the 
end of the garden. 

He had grafted it with his own hands two 
years ago, and now it was covered with a 
wealth of delicate pink and white blossom, 


Rose . 


47 


giving promise, if all went well, of a goodly 
crop of apples in the autumn. Only that 
morning Ruth and he had been looking at it 
as they started on their way to church. 

It was later than most of the trees in 
flowering, and Ruth had said it was all the 
better for that, as it had more chance of 
escaping the late frosts, and she reckoned 
there might be quite half a bushel if the 
blossom set. 

But Rosie thought nothing of the future 
fruit, but only of the beauty of the fragile 
pink and white blossom ; and J oe, forgetting 
that half- bushel, had stretched out his hand 
to pick some of the flowers for her when 
they were called in to tea. 

After tea Joe discovered that Rosie had a 
pretty, little, clear voice, and that she was 
very fond of singing hymns, and liked a 
great many of his favorite ones, and was 
very admiring of his playing, and only 


48 


Rose and Lavender. 


wished there was some one who would teach 
her to do the same. 

So they filled up the time till evening ser- 
vice very delightfully, whilst Ruth washed 
up the tea-things. And then J oe was quite 
annoyed that there were so few people in the 
road to see him pass with Rosie, and so few 
of the young fellows loitering round the 
churchyard -gate and passing their remarks 
on the congregation as they went in. 
As a rule, this was rather an ordeal to 
Joe, who was thin skinned and sensitive 
of any remarks on his Sunday coat. But 
to-day he would quite have courted remark, 
and any chaff about his pretty little com- 
panion would have been very pleasant to 
him. 

He quite regretted now that he sat in the 
choir and could not follow the pink frock 

into church, and that from where he sat he 

• • 

could not see where his mother and Mrs. 


Rose. 


49 


Tilbury were placed, and so catch a glimpse 
now and then, between them, of the hat with 
roses in it. I think if he had sat on the 
other side he might have seen the hat with 
the roses nodding a little during the sermon ; 
but then the evening was warm, and Rosie 
had been up late the night before, so, per* 
haps, Joe would have made more excuses for 
her than his mother did, who more than 
once applied a rousing elbow to her sleepy 
little neighbor. 

Rosie was going back to Medington with 
some friends of Miss Featherly, who had 
driven out to spend the day with one of the 
Milling farmers, and had dropped the girl as 
they went, and promised to pick her up on 
their return ; and just as the party returned 
from church the cart drove up to the gate, 
containing a stout, red-faced man and his 
equally substantial wife. Joe took an un- 
reasonable aversion to the man on the spot 
4 


50 


Rose and Lavender . 


when he made some joking remark as he 
helped Rosie up to her seat. 

Joe was not there when Rosie was bidding 
good-by to the others; he had gone on into 
the cottage to fetch something, and when he 
came back there was a hurry of departure, 
and it was getting a little dusk, so that no 
one noticed what he put into Rosie’s hand 
as he said good by. 

“ Why, what do you think ? ” Mrs. Martin 
said next morning, “if some one ain’t 
broken pretty near all the blossom off Joe’s 
apple-tree! It ’s some of them mischievious 
boys. I ’d only like to catch ’em at it ! I’d 
teach ’em better. Joe will be vexed. He 
thought a terrible deal of that tree.” 

But Joe took the damage done to his 
apple-tree very philosophically, and hardly 
seemed to give a thought to that half bushel 
of apples on which he had been counting, — 
“ though, to be sure, he were a bit put out 


Rose. 


51 


when Ruth came in from fetching the dirty 
clothes from the Vicarage, and said as how 
she had seen the flowers all scattered on the 
road by the pond and trampled about in the 
dust. ” 


52 


Rose and Lavender . 


CHAPTER IV. 

MISS featherly’s workroom. 

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown. 

Pope. 

In the workroom at Miss Featherly’s 
during the hot, breathless July days, and far 
into the apparently hotter and more breath- 
less nights, the thought of Bank Holiday was 
a constant refreshment to the tired girls. 

When Miss Feather ly came up with that 
unnaturally cheerful expression of counte- 
nance, as if she had something very pleasant 
to communicate, a look which the girls knew 
by painful experience meant mischief, more 
than one of the girls gave a quick little 
thought to the long August day, when 
neither a sudden demand for mourning nor 
a wedding order nor a ball could come be- 


Miss Featherings Workroom . 53 


tween them and their hardly earned rest 
and amusement. 

“Young ladies,” Miss Featherly always 
began with a beaming smile, “ I don’t know 
what you ’ll say to me, but Lady Popham 
has been here this afternoon, — so affable ! 
there ’s no denying her ladyship anything, — 
and she would n’t give me any peace till I ’d 
promised to let her have those ball -dresses 
home to-morrow. Miss Jones, I think you 
made a remark ? ” 

A little acidity mingled in her tone and 
look as she turned to the forewoman, who 
had not been able to smother a little groan ; 
and poor Miss Jones, with a sick mother at 
home, and a fear increasing day by day as 
to her own eyesight, could not risk the 
chance of losing her situation, and tried to 
look as if sitting up till dawn was, if not a 
downright pleasure, at any rate quite a mat- 
ter of indifference to her. 


54 


Rose and Lavender. 


“I have ordered coffee and bread and 
butter to be brought up in an hour’s time; 
and, of course, as her ladyship said, it ’s not 
like black work, which is so trying ; it must 
be quite a pleasure to work on such exquisite 
shades of tulle and satin. And, oh! Miss 
Sinclair, her ladyship wished me to tell you 
how pleased she was with the draping of that 
dinner dress, — the heliotrope one, you re- 
member. She is so kind and considerate.” 

It was on such occasions as these that the 
talk in the workroom invariably turned to 
Bank Holiday; though I do not think the 
girls always made known, even to their spe- 
cial friends, the way in which they would 
really rather spend their twenty four hours 
of bliss. 

For instance, Miss Jones always talked of 
an excursion to the sea, which involved 
quite half the day being spent in a crowded 
train, as her idea for Bank Holiday, whereas 


Miss Featherly's Workroom. 55 


deep down in her heart was the very “ slow ” 
notion of a day in the fields, a mile or two 
out of Medington, with “ Mother, ” and of 
lying on the grass under green trees, with 
nothing to vex or worry those tired, strained 
eyes of hers. 

Miss Sinclair, too, the skirt-hand whose 
skill in draping Lady Popham had so highly 
commended, and whose style and elegance 
were the admired of all the other young 
ladies, though she described with gusto the 
water picnic to which she was invited, the 
steam-launch up the river, and the dance 
with which the day was to conclude, har- 
bored in her inmost heart a longing that was 
almost passionate for a little pokey house in 
a back street in Bristol, and a little cripple, 
Beaty, whose wasted arms had not been 
round her sister’s neck for many an empty 
day, and for a certain Rob Dixon, who lived 
next door, and whose rough and shabby 


56 


Rose and Lavender . 


exterior she would not for the world have 
exposed to the eyes of the other young 
ladies, who would pretty nearly have died 
with laughing at such a creature. 

Rosie was undecided how she should spend 
that first Monday in August. Dulborough 
was too far off to be attempted, though I am 
glad to say that she pored for a long time 
over the enigmatical railway time-tables 
before she arrived at that conclusion, and 
allowed her mind to be distracted by the 
tempting proposals of one and another to 
cast in her lot on that day with them. But 
at one time it seemed doubtful if Rosie 
would still be at Medington on Bank Holi- 
day, for that first summer as indoor hand 
tried Rosie’s health a good deal, and the 
pretty pink color that had been one of the 
attractions to Joe’s admiring eyes faded 
away in the close atmosphere and long hours 
of the workroom, and it was a white rose 


Miss Feat her lys Workroom . 57 


more than a blush one to which the little 
girl might now be compared; and twice dur- 
ing the course of those long over-time nights 
of work she had created a commotion in the 
workroom by fainting dead away, and on 
one occasion endangered the well-being of 
Lady Pauline Popham’s ball-dress by the 
reckless upsetting of a coffee-cup in danger- 
ous proximity to its creamy satin and bil- 
lows of tulle. 

Now, Miss Featherly had the greatest ob- 
jection to any of her young ladies being ill, 
especially the indoor hands. Nothing goes 
against a house of business so much as a re- 
port of illness among the work-people, and 
doctors once introduced into a house there is 
no end to the fuss about ventilation and 
over crowding and such rubbish, and ladies 
have such a fear of infection, and just a hint 
of such a thing will often send them to an- 
other milliner. 


58 


Rose and Lavender. 


So at the first alarm of anything amiss 
with either of the young ladies Miss Feath- 
erly was down on the culprit with severity ; 
for girls are apt to be fanciful, and some- 
times a scolding acts as a useful tonic and 
averts an illness. At the second alarm Miss 
Featherly’s manner was much kinder, and 
she administered a fiery glass of port wine, 
and sometimes sent the girl to bed, at the 
same time inquiring her home address, and 
writing it down with such care as sent a 
thrill of dread of her approaching fate to the 
sufferer’s heart At the third the girl’s 
boxes were packed, and the girl seen off 
from Medington station by Miss Featherly 
herself, without any appeal being allowed, 
and with no regard for the present condition 
of the girl, as to whether she was so much 
better that she could easily have taken her 
place in the workroom, or so ill that she was 
quite unfit for a railway journey. 


Miss Featherly s Workroom. 59 


Rosie had undergone the first of these 
forms of treatment after her first faint, and 
was so terribly apprehensive of the second 
and third, that she battled manfully in the 
second with the giddiness and sickness 
creeping over her ; and as she slipped down 
off her seat, with the room whirling round 
her and the gas growing dim to her eyes, 
she gasped out imploringly, “ Don’t let Miss 
Featherly know.” 

The girls were very loyal to one another; 
and when the step of Miss Featherly was 
heard on the stairs, coming to inquire the 
cause of the bump she had heard up there, 
the breadths of satin and tulle were thrown 
over the little, inanimate form on the ground, 
and the girls bent over their work as if 
nothing had happened to disturb the har- 
mony of the evening, and Miss Featherly, 
looking sharply round, did not notice that 
one was missing, and only observed that 


60 


Rose and Lavender . 


Miss Jones was standing up, measuring out 
lengths of satin over the heap on the 
ground. 

But you cannot keep breadths of satin or 
clouds of tulle over any one for several days 
together; and Rosie’s little, white face and 
the dark lines under her eyes were painfully 
conspicuous, and she could not keep her 
hands from trembling when Miss Featherly 
called her into the showroom to show some 
moire sash-ribbon to a customer. Miss 
Featherly was rather fond of bringing Rosie 
into the showroom; she was pretty and in- 
teresting looking, and ladies had more than 
once noticed her sweet little face. But on 
the present occasion Rosie would have been 
glad to avoid the notice, kind though it 
was, of the customer before whom she was 
displaying the ribbon. 

“I am afraid you are not feeling well, ” the 
lady said ; “ have you a headache, my dear ? ” 


Miss Feather ly’s Workroom . 61 


It was such a kind, motherly voice that 
the tears sprang into the girl’s eyes, and one 
large salt drop actually rolled down on to 
that lovely cream ribbon at five shillings 
and ninepence a yard. 

It was as much as Miss Featherly could do 
to keep a tone of sharpness out of her voice 
as she forestalled the words which poor 
Rosie’s quivering lips were trying to form. 
“Miss Bailey is always rather pale, Madam; 
but, as a rule, she enjoys excellent health. ” 

But the lady could not quite bring herself 
to believe, even on Miss Featherly’s incon- 
trovertible authority, that such heavy eyes 
with tears so near them, and such quivering 
lips and hands, could betoken excellent 
health, and she did not understand how 
much kinder to Rosie it would have been 
to drop the subject. 

“I should recommend plenty of fresh air 
and exercise, ” she went on. “ Send her out 


62 


Rose and Lavender . 


for a run, Miss Featherly, whenever she can 
be spared; that will soon bring back the 
roses to her cheeks. ” 

“Yes, Madam,” purred Miss Featherings 
soft voice ; “ how kind of you to be interested 
in my young people ! I try to consider them 
in every way, but there are so few ladies 
who are so considerate as you are. Miss 
Bailey is leaving me very shortly, or else I 
should make a point of carrying out your 
kind suggestion about exercise.” 

It did not apparently require air and 
exercise to bring back the roses to the girl’s 
cheeks. Miss Featherly’s last words had 
had the same effect, for Rosie’s face was 
crimson up to the temples at this intimation 
that she was to leave. 

“ I am sorry you are leaving Medington, ” 
the lady said. “ I was going to ask if you 
would bring the fashion plates Miss Feath- 
erly is going to send next week. It is a 


Miss Feather ly’s Workroom. 63 


nice walk out to South Hill; but perhaps 
you will not be here.” 

Now Mrs. Trevor was a new customer and 
likely to be a good one, and though Miss 
Featherly was resolved not to brook any in- 
terference between herself and her work- 
people, it would not do to offend her, and if 
she had taken a fancy to the girl (tiresome 
little minx ! she shall pay for that sash- 
ribbon), it might be worth while to humor 
her. So Miss Featherly promised that if Miss 
Bailey had not gone by next week, she should 
be the one to carry the parcel to Mrs. Trevor. 

“So kind of you, dear Madam! So 
thoughtful ! So considerate ! So unlike 
most of our customers ! ” dropped in dulcet 
tones from Miss Featherly, as she followed 
Mrs. Trevor to the door. “ Interfering old 
cat!” she added, under her breath, as the 
footman closed the carriage door and the 
horses moved off. 


64 


Bose and Lavender. 


CHAPTER Y. 

SUNDAY. 

Of all the days that ’s in the week 
I dearly love but one day. 

And that ’s the day that comes betwixt 
A Saturday and Monday. 

Caret. 

It produced a regular commotion in the 
cottage by the pond when three Sundays af- 
ter that on which Rosie Bailey came over to 
Milling, Joe announced his intention of going 
into Medington. It was such an unheard of 
proceeding that the three women could hardly 
believe their ears, and there was an ominous 
silence, while Joe turned as red as the pop- 
pies in the field beyond the garden, and pre- 
tended to rub a spot off his coat-sleeve. 

“And what will Mr. Silvy say, I should 
like to know ? ” Mrs. Martin burst out at 


Sunday . 


65 


last, “ and that new chant and all that you ’ve 
been making such a piece of work about ? 
And you so tired last night as you could n’t 
even draw a pail of water to save Ruth! 
Oh ! you ’re not going to walk all the way, 
ain’t you ? and there ’s a train from Warford 
at two, is there ? I never did hold with 
Sunday travelling, no ! nor trapesing about, 
as is breaking the fourth commandment to 
my mind.” And so on, with voice and 
complexion heightening as she went on, 
bringing back to Mrs. Tilbury’s mind old 
days when good-natured Will Martin used 
to get many such ratings. 

Joe sat with his hands in his pockets, 
whistling softly with a very dogged expres- 
sion on his usually amiable face. He had 
inherited his father’s dislike to a scene, 
though he had not had his father’s experi- 
ence of his mother’s tongue, as perhaps she 

had learned to control it since it had spoken 
5 


66 


Rose and Lavender . 


those bitter words which had been the last 
Will had heard, or perhaps Joe’s delicate 
childhood had made her more tender to 
him. 

He was half inclined to give up the plan, 
but his mind had been full of Rosie all the 
week. He could think of nothing else ; she 
came between him and his work, she came 
between him and what used to be his pleas- 
ure, but which now seemed utterly flat and 
unprofitable; and now, in all the pauses of 
his mother’s angry expostulations, he heard 
Rosie’s pretty little voice saying, “ Don’t you 
ever come into Medington ? You ought to 
see the Medington churches. There ’s grand 
music at St. John’s, and if it’s fine, I often 
go for a walk on Sunday afternoons with — ” 
“ Who ? ” he had asked with a sudden pang 
of jealousy. “Oh, one of the young ladies, 
to be sure,” she had answered with a little 
laugh, “and sometimes by myself.” 


Sunday. 


67 


The two following Sunday afternoons were 
almost intolerable to Joe after that; and 
when the third came, he felt it was simply 
impossible to settle down to the humdrum 
reading in his mother’s monotonous voice, 
and to the sleepy buzz of the bee which 
always seemed to find its way on Sunday 
afternoons to a corner of the casement 
window, and to Ruth’s hardly suppressed 
yawns, and to her mother’s irrepressible 
noddings. 

The evening service, with the small 
achievements of the choir, was no longer 
the source of interest and pleasure it had 
hitherto been; he hardly cared if Jones took 
the wrong note in that critical part of the 
new chant, or if the boys got flat in the 
hymn, or if the basses growled away utterly 
regardless of the lights and shades which 
had been impressed on them at practice. 

“I told Silvy,” he said, in answer to his 


68 


Rose and Lavender . 


mother’s harangue, when she gave him a 
chance of edging in a word, “ I told him 
I should be away this evening. Oh, yes, he 
looked a bit black at first ; that ’s always the 
way if a fellow ’s regular, every one ’s down 
on him if by any chance he don’t turn up. 
Now there ’s Jones, he ’s as often away as he 
is there, and he don’t come unless he ’s 
a mind to, and yet nobody says a word to 
him if he 'stays away. And Mr. Si Ivy often 
says as it would do us choirmen a lot of good 
to go about a bit and hear other choirs. He 
says we get into all sorts of tricks, just 
because we don’t hear any one but ourselves, 
and think there ’s no other place in the 
world but Milling. It won’t do any harm 
to show him that I ’m not tied by the leg, 
and when I said I was going into Medington, 
he said he heard there was a first-rate choir 
at St. Luke’s, and he only wished he was 
going too. And he said,” added artful Joe, 


Sunday. 


69 


who knew how pleased his mother was at any 
praise of his musical ability, — “ he said when 
I got on a bit with the organ and could take 
his place now and then, he ’d get a chance 
of a Sunday off, and of hearing something 
else except Robinson’s growling.” 

Mrs. Martin was certainly a little molli- 
fied at this, but she kept up an outward 
appearance of severity, helping him to meat 
at dinner with an offended air, and going 
without more potatoes rather than ask him 
to give her some ; and when J oe got up from 
the table to set off on his walk to Warford, 
she appeared entirely unconscious of his 
departure, and was quite absorbed in a dis- 
cussion with Mrs. Tilbury as to how a staiu 
had come on the table-cloth. jj 

It was a curious fact that neither his 
mother nor Mrs. Tilbury associated Joe’s 
sudden wish to go to Medington with their 
visitor of three Sundays before; and it was 


70 


Rose and Lavender . 


only Ruth, who was not generally quick at 
guessing motives or solving mysteries, who 
knew at the first word that it was Rosie’s 
blue eyes that were the attraction. 

She did not say a word during dinner, but 
then she was never much of a talker; but 
when Joe was gone (and she noticed that he 
picked a tasty little bunch of roses as he 
went out) she put in a few words of excuse 
on his side, which went far to pacify Mrs. 
Martin, though outwardly she resented her 
taking Joe’s part, and declared it was 
always the same, that she backed up Joe 
against his mother, and that every one was 
against her. 

But I think Ruth found out for the first 
time, that Sunday when J oe was away, how 
pleasant the drowsy afternoon was as long 
as he was sitting opposite to give her an 
amused look when her mother nodded too 
audaciously, or when the kitten made an 


Sunday. 


71 


irreverent dash at Mrs. Martin’s apron- 
string. She realized, too, from the want of 
it, the pleasure of loitering round the garden 
after tea with Joe, and noticing how the 
fruit-blossom was setting, or the beans com- 
ing into flower in a leisurely way which 
week-day occupations did not allow of, and 
then the walk up to church with the sweet 
bells flinging their cheerful summons far and 
wide through the evening air, and the groups 
of neighbors that they passed with a word or 
a nod or a good-evening. And then the 
evening service, — well, of course, it was 
just the same as ever this Sunday, and Mrs. 
Brown, who knew a lot about music, did not 
even notice that Joe was absent from the 
choir, but it seemed to Ruth out of tune and 
constantly on the verge of breaking down, 
and the sermon that her mother was so 
particularly pleased with seemed to Ruth’s 
usually uncritical mind long and uninterest- 


72 


Rose and Lavender . 


ing. As for the walk home afterward, she 
had never dreamt till to-day how much she 
liked walking home with Joe in the soft 
summer twilight, or spring’s fragrant dark- 
ness, or even in winter’s clear, cold frosti- 
ness with the great stars throbbing overhead, 
till she followed her mother and his down 
the road alone for the first time. Why, she 
even remembered with pleasure a wet Sun- 
day not long ago when he had held the green 
cotton umbrella over her, though at the time 
she had thought all the way of the mud and 
of her petticoats getting draggled. 

But though the afternoon and evening had 
not b bright to Ruth, she looked up 



with that pleasant broad smile of hers when 
Joe came in, and bustled about to get him 
some supper, and asked all sorts of questions 
about St. John’s and the service and the 
music, — questions which Mrs. Martin was 
dying but too proud to ask, — till by degrees 


Sunday . 


73 


his mother’s offended coldness thawed, and 
she forgot how displeased she had been, and 
agreed with Mrs. Tilbury that it did any one 
good and waked them up a bit to hear what 
was doing in other places. 

It was not till the two mothers had gone 
up to bed, and Ruth was clearing away Joe’s 
supper things, that she asked, 44 Did you see 
Rosie Bailey ? ” 

He was longing to tell some one about it. 
Joe was never one to keep his feelings to 
himself, and he was only too willing to tell 
her how he 44 happened ” to be passing along 
Bridge Street just when Rosie came out of 
Miss Featherly’s. He did not mention that 
he 44 happened ” to have passed up and down 
Bridge Street about twenty times before 
Rosie appeared. 

44 There was another young lady with 
her,” he went on, 44 very nice, and no end 
smart, but not a patch on Rosie. — Do you 


74 


Rose and Lavender . 


know, Ruth, they call her Miss Bailey 
there ? — And they were going out for a 
walk, but we hadn’t gone far when Miss 
Brown, I think they called her, remembered 
she had promised to go and see a friend ; so 
Rosie and me went on together, down into 
the meadows, don’t you know ? by the river. 
The afternoon was gone in no time. I could 
hardly believe my ears when it struck five, 
and we had to get back if we meant to go to 
service at St. John’s. We had a cup of tea 
at a friend of her mother’s. I don’t think 
she much cared to go to St. John’s, and, do 
you know, Ruth, I think I must have a new 
coat; this ain’t at all a good cut, and one 
don’t like to look a guy when one ’s along 
with a well-got-up girl like Rosie; but I 
thought Mother would think it so queer, after 
all 1 said about the choir, if I didn’t go 
there; so we went.” 

Ruth listened to this and a great deal 


Sunday . 


75 


more, standing with the cheese-dish in her 
hand; and as he looked up at her, he only 
noticed how plain she was, and how her eyes 
grew small and her mouth wide when she 
smiled, and how clumsily she stood with the 
dish in her large red hand, comparing her 
all the time with Rosie’s pretty face and 
dainty figure, with the smiling lips and 
sweet eyes and blushes that came and went 
as he talked to her. And he had not eyes to 
see or sense to know the beautiful unselfish 
soul, the true faithful woman’s heart, con- 
cealed under Ruth’s unattractive exterior. 


76 


Rose and Lavender . 


CHAPTER VI. 

MARKET-DAY. 

You say that you think her slow, 

But how can that be with one 
Who ’s the first to do a kindness 
Whenever it can be done ? 

Wednesday is market-day in Medington; 
and now and then, when Farmer Cartright 
had room in his cart, he would take in Mrs. 
Martin or Ruth with him, for he still kept a 
warm corner in his heart for them since the 
day when he had been the bearer of such 
bitter news to the cottage by the pond. 
Even now, though eighteen years had elapsed 
since that sad time, the pity of it would 
come over him occasionally with a burst of 
compassion. 

“Poor things! poor things!” he would 
reiterate at intervals, and twinkle the 


Market-Day. 


77 


moisture out of his eyes, and blow his 
nose loudly in his spotted pocket-hand- 
kerchief. 

And then Mrs. Cartright knew that he 
would not recover his usual spirits till some 
little present had gone to the cottage by the 
pond, — a couple of rabbits, or a pat of fresh- 
churned butter, or a few new-laid eggs, or a 
bit of pig-meat when they had “killed a 
pig into house;” a practical form for pity 
to take, which might with advantage be imi- 
tated by some of us. 

So when Mrs. Cartright or either of his 
girls did not care to go into market, he 
offered a seat to Mrs. Martin or Ruth, whose 
simple attire pleased his old-fashioned taste, 
and who, he said, did not keep up a chatter 
all the way till your head ached, but could 
give a sensible answer to a sensible question, 
which was more than most women could do* 
as he told his daughters. 


78 


Rose and Lavender , 


“And they know what it means to be 
punctual, which is more than nine women 
out of ten do, and don’t keep me kicking my 
heels outside the ‘ Marquis of Granby ’ for 
half an hour while they ’re flattening their 
noses against all the shop-windows, and 
pretending they don’t know what time it is, 
when there ’s the Town Hall clock as plain 
as a pikestaff.” 

From which it may be gathered that the 
farmer’s daughters were not always as punc- 
tual as could be wished. 

On the Wednesday after Joe’s visit to 
Medington, Farmer Cartright sent round to 
say he could take two of them into Meding- 
ton if they liked to go. Now Mrs. Martin 
had the toothache, and besides, it was iron- 
ing-day, and Mrs. Tilbury was nervous of 
the farmer’s horse, which had a way of 
shying occasionally, and she could not 
be sure of her self-control, and that any 


Market-Day. 


79 


sudden alarm might not provoke a scream, 
which she knew would seriously annoy the 
driver. 

But Farmer Cartright’s invitations were 
somewhat of the same description as those 
of royalty, which are commands, and since 
he had offered to take two, two must, at 
whatever inconvenience, go; so toothache, 
ironing, or nerves would have to be ignored, 
and either Mrs. Martin or Mrs. Tilbury go 
with Ruth. 

So it was a relief as well as a surprise 
when Joe volunteered to go. 

“Why, I didn’t think as you could spare 
the time,” his mother said. “There ’s them 
boots of Tom Shore’s to be half soled as 
he ’ve sent after more than once, and Mrs. 
Jones said you ’d promised her little girl’s 
shoes faithful by Thursday for the chapel 
tea-drinking. And besides,” Mrs. Martin 
added, with a meaning look in the direction 


80 


Rose and Lavender . 


of Ruth, “ I thought as you ’d another job as 
you wanted to get done particular this 
week ? ” 

Next Sunday was Ruth’s birthday, and 
Joe had been secretly making a pair of shoes 
to present to her on that occasion, — a sub- 
stantial offering, as neither Ruth’s feet nor 
Joe’s skill in shoemaking was of a very 
refined and elegant description. Ruth was 
not supposed to know anything of the in- 
tended present, but she must have been very 
blind and much more stupid than she really 
was, if her mother’s and Mrs. Martin’s 
meaning glances and half words let drop on 
many occasions had not enlightened her. 
And after all, it was pleasanter to know, it 
was worth all the surprises in the world to 
be aware, that Joe was working for her, 
taking pains to please her, when she heard 
the tap-tap of his hammer in the next cot- 
tage later than usual in the evening, or 


Market-Day . 


81 


earlier in the morning, or at stray minutes 
saved from dinner or tea-time. 

But Joe thought he could spare time to 
go into Medington that day. 

“Tom Shore ’s in a mighty hurry for his 
boots, but he ’ll not be in such a hurry to 
pay for them, I warrant, so he can just wait ; 
and as for Polly Jones’s shoes, I can finish 
’em easy for her in time for the tea- 
drinking, though it would n’t be much harm 
if I did n’t, as she did ought to go to church 
school instead.” 

Mrs. Martin looked a little dubious at this 
treatment of customers, and stroked one 
slightly swollen cheek reflectively to see if 
toothache could be ignored. 

But Joe was evidently in no humor for 
work, and when he had gone up to change 
his coat, Mrs. Tilbury suggested to Mrs. 
Martin that the young folks would be com- 
pany for each other in Medington. 

6 


82 


Rose and Lavender. 


“Joe don’t often take a holiday, neither. 
Oh, Sunday don’t count. The shops was all 
shut, and he went to church half the time, 
and Ruth, she were n’t there, neither. It ’s 
only natural as he should like to go along of 
she. Why, when me and my Dick was court- 
ing, he pretty near lost his place more than 
once through taking French leave and com- 
ing after me, and I ’ve no doubt as your 
Will were the same. Not that Joe have any 
need to go out of his way; some folks’ court- 
ing is made easy for ’em. But you can’t 
put old heads on young shoulders, and we 
mustn’t be hard on ’em, Ellen Martin.” 

Mrs. Tilbury always waxed very impres- 
sive when she talked of the young folks, and 
felt wonderfully wise and old as she dwelt 
on the follies of youth; but I hardly think 
centuries would have sufficed to put an old 
head on Mrs. Tilbury’s shoulders, if an old 
head signifies wisdom and common-sense. 


Market- Day. 


83 


And Ruth, catching a word or two here 
and there of her mother’s harangue, was not 
ill pleased to think that it was for her sake 
that Joe was so set on going into Medington, 
and there was a pleased little flutter at her 
heart, which you would hardly have credited 
in such a steady, matter-of-fact, business- 
like organ, at the prospect of walking up 
High Street with him. How bright the day 
was! how blue the sky! How the birds 
were singing! and how sweet the air was 
with the beans all in flower under the 
hedge ! 

Joe was conscious too of the beauty of the 
day and an exhilaration of spirits ; “ and very 
natural too,” his mother and Mrs. Tilbury 
would have said, “ that both the young people 
should feel the same.” But I am afraid 
that it was not the prospect of walking up 
High Street with Ruth that sent the pleasant 
little flutter to Joe’s heart, or on her account 


84 


Rose and Lavender. 


that the sun shone and the birds sang and 
the air was full of sweet scents. 

“I shall be going on Wednesday,” Rosie 
had said, “to take a parcel to South Hill, 
Mrs. Trevor’s place out on the Warford 
Road. It ’s market-day, and there ’s always 
a lot of cows about, and I ’m frightened to 
death of the things.” 

And Joe had wished with all his heart 
that he could be there to protect her, but had 
not ventured to hope for any chance of see- 
ing her again so soon; and now it had all 
happened as easily as possible, and he had 
not even to run the gauntlet of his mother’s 
displeasure. 

Somehow all remembrance of Rosie had 
gone clean out of Ruth’s mind, and when 
she saw Joe picking some flowers, she half 
hoped and half feared he was going to give 
them to her. It was not so very long ago 
that he had given her the lavender, but she 


Market-Day. 


85 


would have received the little bunch he was 
arranging now very differently; but all the 
same, she hoped if he gave them that he 
would not mind her putting them in a glass 
of water and leaving them at home, for she 
had not the art some girls have of pinning a 
flower at her throat or waist so as to look 
pretty, and she knew she stuck them in 
awkwardly, and so it was rather an embar- 
rassment to her ; and besides, it might stain 
her new bonnet-strings. 

But she might have saved herself the 
trouble of thinking of it, for the flowers 
were not for her, and she guessed it directly 
he spoke. 

“Couldn’t you call in and see Rosie 
Bailey ? ” 

“ Bless your heart ! it would n’t never do 
to call in just while they ’re busy. ” 

“ Oh, they ’re not likely to be so busy but 
what she could come down to the door for 


86 


Rose and Lavender . 


a minute like, just to pass the time of 
day. ” 

But Ruth shook her head. “Rosie said 
they was terrible drove sometimes, and had 
hardly time to get their meals.” 

“ She was very much taken up with you, 
Ruth,” he went on. 

“ Well, I can’t say as I ’d much to do with 
her that Sunday she come, what with get- 
ting the tea and one thing and another. 
She talked a deal more to mother than she 
did to me.” 

“But she liked you,” Joe persisted. 
“ She told me she did, and she said she only 
wished we was nearer, so as she could see 
more of you, as she ’d dearly like you for a 
friend.” 

“Did she now?” said Ruth; and Joe 
noticed that she had an uncommonly pleas- 
ant smile when she looked pleased. “And 
I ’ve always liked Rosie Bailey since I first 


Market- Bay . 


87 


knew her. But there ’s the cart ! Come on, 
Joe, down to the gate.” 

Medington on market-day is a scene of 
great bustle and liveliness ; and to eyes like 
Ruth’s and Joe’s, unaccustomed to town 
life, the throngs of people and the stir and 
movement were quite confusing. 

Farmer Cartright was too much taken up 
by his own affairs to have any time to spare 
for them ; so with a short reminder to be at 
the “ Marquis of Granby ” sharp by three, as 
he would not wait for any one, he bustled off 
to the corn-market, leaving them to follow 
their own devices. 

When they once got over their first bewil- 
derment, and ceased to feel that they were 
in every one’s way, and to jostle and be 
jostled, there was plenty to amuse them. 
The shop -windows would have been enough 
for Ruth, and for Joe too, on most occa- 
sions; there was the town band playing in 


88 


Rose and Lavender. 


front of the Queen’s Hotel, and Joe gener- 
ally wanted nothing better than to listen to 
their performances; there was the second- 
hand music and book stall in the narrow 
street by St. Peter’s Church, to which Joe on 
former visits to Medington had always found 
his way ; but to-day these all seemed to have 
lost their attractions. He was quite cross 
to Ruth when she lingered in front of the 
big jeweller’s ; he hurried her past the band, 
though they were playing something he 
knew, and though Ruth only waited because 
she knew how much he liked to hear the 
music ; and he passed the book-stall in Cross 
Street without as much as casting a glance 
at the tempting display of old volumes. 

The only shop before which he seemed in- 
clined to linger was Jackson’s, the big tailor 
and outfitter in the market-place; and he 
stood in front of their large window for ever 
so long in moody silence, though Ruth soon 


Market-Day . 


89 


got tired of contemplating the pasty-faced wax 
figures of men and boys in affected attitudes, 
clad in the latest style of ready-made tailor- 
ing, and she would have liked to move on 
to the stationer’s next door, where there 
were pictures and photographs displayed. 

More than once Joe turned to her as if 
there was something he was going to say; 
but each time he stopped himself and went 
back to his study of the tailor’s dummies, 
and once he brought out his purse and gave 
a quick look into it, and then put it back 
in his pocket with a sigh. 

And then it flashed upon Ruth what the 
meaning of it was, and she remembered his 
disparaging remarks about his coat on Sun- 
day evening, and his wish for a new one, 
and — just for a minute, poor, silly Ruth ! — 
she fancied that he did not think himself 
smart enough for walking about Medington 
with her. “One don’t like to look a guy 


90 


Rose and Lavender, 


when one ’s along with a well-got-up girl — 
like Rosie,” he had added; “but it might be 
the same about me, ” Ruth thought, “ and to 
be sure, I ’ve got my new bonnet on, and 
mother said it didn’t look bad.” Not that 
she thought so badly of the coat he had on ; 
she had always regarded it with respect as 
a Sunday garment, and she knew that coat 
well — who better ? — from having brushed 
and folded it many a time ; and as for that 
little tear on the sleeve, it had been so 
beautifully mended that no one who did 
not know of it could possibly find out where 
it was. 

“You’ve set your heart on one of them 
coats,” she said at last; “though I don’t see 
what ’s so much amiss in the one you ’ve 
got on.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you do, and it does 
well enough to wear about at home; but, I 
tell you, I was downright ashamed of it on 


Market-Day . 


91 


Sunday by the side of other chaps. But, 
there ! it ’s no use thinking of it; I ’m pretty 
well cleared out of cash, and I must put up 
with looking a guy.” 

It was just the same with Joe as a man 
as it had been as a boy. He could not keep 
the money in his pocket, and what was left 
after he had paid his mother for his keep 
melted away, no one could quite say how. 

And Ruth had also kept her saving ways, 
— ways which do not by any means always 
go with stinginess and meanness, — and, 
what was a most unusual thing considering 
her cautious habits and fear of pickpockets, 
she actually had three pounds in her pocket ; 
not, of course, the pocket of her dress, but 
in an under pocket, tied on under her dress, 
which required a good deal of rummaging 
before you could arrive at its contents. She 
had brought the money into Medington to 
pay into the savings-bank ; but she began to 


92 


Rose and Lavender . 


rummage after it while Joe was speaking, 
and though he was half aware of what she 
was about, he could not help wishing that 
she would not be so awkward and regardless 
of appearances. 

At first he refused to take it; but she 
begged so earnestly, and with such evident 
sincerity, that he gave in at last, “just to 
please her.” 

“And I shall pay it back, Ruth, next 
week at the latest. It is good of you to lend 
it to me. There ’s not such another girl as 
you in England.” 

Why! the money was more than repaid 
already by those words of Joe’s. Ruth’s 
face beamed so with pleasure that some 
passers-by turned to look at her; and Joe, 
who hated of all things to be conspicuous, 
made his way into the shop, followed partly 
in by Ruth, whispering, “Put it on, Joe. 
I ’d dearly like to see you in it. ” 


Market-Day. 


93 


Now I do not want the reader to think too 
badly of Joe, for when he came out of 
J ackson’s, he really was full of gratitude to 
Ruth and the sense of her unselfish kind- 
ness, and he was quite determined to do 
something to please her for the rest of the 
day. 

He certainly succeeded in pleasing her by 
his mere appearance in the new coat with 
the addition of a “ bowler” hat and more 
fashionable collar and tie. Her satisfaction 
was even greater than his own had been 
when he took a sheepish look at the effect 
in the tailor’s long glass, and came to the 
conclusion that Rosie would not be ashamed 
to go to St. John’s with him again. 

But her admiration was so open and un- 
disguised and loudly expressed, edging away 
from him to get a better look, and falling 
behind to see how he looked in the rear, that 
Joe was glad to turn out of the crowded 


94 


Rose and Lavender . 


market-place, where more than one passer- 
by gave an amused look at them, into a 
quieter side street, where there were not so 
many people about. And I do believe that 
it was quite accidental that this street into 
which they turned was Bridge Street, and 
that before they had gone half way along it, 
they passed a door on which was a brass 
plate bearing the words “Miss Featherly, 
Modiste. ” 

I must also acquit Joe of any preconcerted 
plan or arrangement in the matter, for he 
honestly thought that it was much too soon 
to expect Rosie to appear setting out on her 
expedition to South Hill. But all the same, 
as Ruth and Joe came down Bridge Street 
again, the door with the brass plate on it 
opened, and down the steps came tripping no 
less a person than Rosie Bailey, not quite as 
smart as she appeared on Sunday, but very 
jaunty and well turned out. She was carry- 


Market-Day. 


95 


ing a small parcel, and she set off briskly 
across the road, without noticing the two 
coming down the street towards her. 

“ I do believe,” Ruth was beginning in 
her slow way. “Well, to be sure! if that 
ain’t Rosie Bailey!” 

But before the words were out of her 
mouth, Joe had set off after the trim little 
figure, which was just turning the corner, 
and the next minute they were both out of 
sight. 


96 


Rose and Lavender . 


CHAPTER VII. 
ruth’s birthday. 

Quick to perceive a want, 

Quicker to set it right, 

Quickest in overlooking 
Injury, wrong, and slight. 

When Farmer Cartright drove out of the 
“ Marquis of Granby ” a few minutes after 
three, he found Ruth waiting, punctual as 
usual. 

“ Where ’s Joe ? ” he said. “ I can’t 

wait. ” 

And she answered, but with an anxious 
little glance up and down High Street, as if 
she half expected to see him coming, in 
spite of her words, “Oh, Joe’s met a 
friend, and he ’ll walk home, so don’t 
trouble about him.” 


Ruth's Birthday. 


97 


She was more than usually silent as they 
jogged home, and the farmer thought per- 
haps she was a bit tired. 

Yes, perhaps she was. It is tiring to 
wander about all day alone in a crowd, and 
the Medington shops were unusually dull 
and uninteresting that day, and that band, 
blaring away so loud and shrill, made her 
head ache, and the drive home was dusty and 
glaring, and she thought there was going to 
be a thunderstorm, the air was so sultry and 
oppressive. 

Ruth was never a good hand at describing 
anything, so her mother and Mrs. Martin 
did not get much of an idea of her doings in 
Medington, except that it had been very 
pleasant, and that Ruth had enjoyed it very 
much, and they did not rightly understand 
how it was that Joe had not come home in 
Farmer Cartright’s cart. 

Nor did they get much more out of Joe, 
7 


98 


Rose and Lavender. 


who arrived a couple of hours later, dusty 
and tired and footsore, but looking, never- 
theless, so bright and beaming that Mrs. 
Martin confided to Mrs. Tilbury, “There 
weren’t nothing as did the lad so much good 
as a day’s outing Tong of Ruth.” 

Ruth was in the garden fetching in some 
clothes from the line when Joe came in, and 
he stopped to make his peace with her before 
he went into the house. It was always easy 
to make peace with Ruth, and she hardly 
knew she felt hurt with him till he took hold 
of her apron in a deprecating, coaxing sort 
of way. 

“You got on all right, Ruth, did n’t you ? 
I knew you would, you ’re such a sensi- 
ble sort of girl, not like most of them. 
I thought you were coming too when I set 
off after Rosie, — it was Rosie Bailey, you 
know, — and upon my word, ” went on the 
young man, unconsciously and unobserved 


Ruth's Birthday. 


99 


by Ruth contradicting himself, “ I quite for- 
got all about you till we were quite out of 
the town ! And a lucky thing it was that I 
overtook her, for there was a lot of cattle on 
the road, and she was frightened to death of 
them, and 1 don’t know however she would 
have got past if I had n’t been there. Not 
that there was any harm in the beasts ; but 
she ain’t like you, Ruth, used to the coun- 
try, and she ’s a frightened little thing as 
needs some one to take care of her. She 
was going out to a house called South Hill, 
about two miles out of Medington. The 
lady there have took a sort of fancy to her, 
and no wonder, and asked Miss Featherly to 
let her come and bring a parcel for her, and 
she had her in and gave her some cake and 
lemonade, and took her into the conservatory 
to see all the flowers and things, and asked 
her to come again when Miss Featherly 
could spare her, and offered to lend her some 




100 


Rose and Lavender. 


books. But Rosie ain’t much of a hand at 
reading, I fancy,” Joe went on, with an in- 
dulgent smile ; “ but she did n’t let Mrs. 
Trevor know that, or she might have thought 
she was silly and thoughtless, and Rosie 
ain’t that. I thought she were n’t never 
coming out again, or had slipped out some 
other way, and the man at the lodge asked 
me what I was after, and was inclined to be 
nasty about my waiting about. But she 
come at last, and we took another way back, 
and as she ’d be late for dinner, I got her 
some tarts and things. She do like jam 
puffs, and no mistake ; it were a pleasure to 
see her eat ’em. And, Ruth, she noticed 
my new coat, and she said, — what do you 
think she said ? — that I looked a regular 
masher ! But I say, Ruth, was Mother 
vexed at my not coming home along of 
you ? ” 

“Oh, no; I said as you’d a mind for a 




Ruth's Birthday. 


101 


walk. And, Joe, T ain’t said nothing of 
your going after Rosie Bailey. Of course, I 
did n’t mind, but I thought, maybe, they ’d 
be fancying I should. There, Joe, go along 
with you, and don’t hinder. I ’ve a deal to 
do before supper, and if you ain’t tired you 
did ought to be.” 

Joe certainly was tired by his walk, so 
tired that for the next two days he did not 
seem much inclined for work. The women 
all made excuses for what in any one else 
they would have called laziness, and Mrs. 
Martin took great pains to explain to the 
justly irate Mrs. Jones how it was that her 
little girl had to go to the chapel tea-drink- 
ing with scarcely a shoe to her foot, and to 
one or two others why Joe had not finished 
the mending or making he had undertaken to 
do for them. As for that half -finished pair 
of shoes for Ruth, she found them put aside 
in a corner, and the dust on them told that 


102 


Bose and Lavender . 


they had not been touched for some days. 
They would hardly be ready in time for her 
birthday now. 

Ruth’s birthday was always rather an im- 
portant occasion in the house by the pond. 
Joe’s came in the winter just before Christ- 
mas, so that it got absorbed into the festivi- 
ties of the season; but Ruth’s was in July, 
and though July is said to be the rainiest 
month in the year, it almost always hap- 
pened that the 21st was fine and bright. 
No work was to be done by Ruth on that 
day, though I must confess that the en- 
forced idleness was not an unmixed pleasure 
to her, and her fingers sometimes itched to 
take the iron out of her mother’s hands, or 
fill the tea-kettle instead of Joe. 

Mrs. Martin always perpetrated a cake for 
the occasion, and it would have been the 
darkest heresy for any one to breathe a word 
against that substantial article. Her theory 


Ruth's Birthday . 


103 


was that if only you put thoroughly good 
material into a cake, the result must be 
good; but experience proved that this was 
not invariably the case, as there is some art 
in the treatment of materials, even of the 
very best. 

Ruth wore her Sunday dress all day, and 
might not even turn up the sleeves and put 
on an apron to wash up as much as a cup 
and saucer. A few neighbors were generally 
invited in to tea and to partake of the birth- 
day cake, and drank Ruth’s health in a glass 
of home-made gooseberry wine made by Mrs. 
Martin after a receipt of her grandmother’s, 
and which was, as Mrs. Martin assured her 
guests, very wholesome, and which no one 
had the boldness to add was also far from 
nice. 

This year Ruth’s birthday fell on a Sun- 
day, so the entertainment had to be slightly 
varied to suit the day; but the cake was 


104 


Rose and Lavender 


prepared as usual the day before, Mrs. 
Martin assuming her usual determined and 
important air over it, and giving such a sigh 
of relief when the business was done and the 
cake safely placed in the oven, as if the 
operation had weighed as heavily on her 
mind as it was likely to do on the digestions 
of those who partook of it. 

Joe, too, was very busy that day. Mrs. 
Martin and Mrs. Tilbury nodded meaningly 
to each other when they heard him at work 
soon after dawn, and when he could hardly 
spare time to come in to his breakfast. 
Ruth, too, who had seen the dust on those 
unfinished shoes the day before, guessed the 
meaning of this feverish activity, and wished, 
in the kindness of her heart, that Joe 
would n’t trouble about it, and would have 
told him so, if only it were not intended to 
be such a surprise to her. 

She even went so far as to give him a 


j Ruth's Birthday . 


105 


pretty broad hint on the subject when Mrs. 
Shore called for her husband’s boots, which 
were not yet finished, and was inclined to be 
hoity-toity because Joe had kept them so 
long. 

“And how’s Tom to go to work on Mon- 
day, 1 ’d like to know, with his feet pretty 
near on the ground ? ” 

“Tell her they ain’t done,” Joe said, as 
Ruth came to the door with the message. 
“He shall have them on Monday.” 

And Ruth, looking scrupulously the other 
way, so as not to see the work he was on, 
said: “Could n’t you leave the job you ’re on 
and finish Tom Shore’s boots? He wants 
them terrible particular.” 

“No, there, 1 can’t!” was the answer, in 
a very cross tone, considering that it was for 
her he was sacrificing Tom Shore. 

He was quite in a fever by the evening, 
and came in to supper with that flush on his 


106 


Bose and Lavender . 


face in a straight line under his eyes that 
always made his mother anxious about him 
when he was a boy, and he was so irritable 
and cross that none of the three women ven- 
tured to speak to him, and the cat got a kick 
for jumping on his knee and startling him. 

Ruth felt that she would a great deal 
rather wait, even till next year, for her 
shoes, than that Joe should make himself 
look so tired and ill over them, and be 
so shockingly in the dumps. They never 
called it crossness when Joe was concerned. 

There he was at it still with his little 
benzoline lamp lighted after Mrs. Tilbury 
had gone up to bed, and Mrs. Martin was 
nodding over her knitting, and waking with a 
snort every now and then to wonder if Joe 
was not nearly done. 

Ruth felt at last that those shoes, precious 
as they would be to her, were not worth the 
price Joe was paying for them, and she got 


Ruth's Birthday. 


107 


up and went into the next house, opening 
the door as softly as she could, and I was 
going to say, stealing in, but Ruth’s move* 
ments were not of such a fairy-like kind as 
to merit the word. 

But anyhow Joe was too deeply engrossed 
in his work to notice her entrance, and she 
stood for a minute looking at him, and pity- 
ing with all her kind heart the brows drawn 
together in a nervous frown, and the dissat- 
isfied working of his lips. 

Why ! it was not that pair of shoes which 
he had begun a fortnight before that he was 
working at now, but another pair made of 
buff leather, one of which stood finished on 
the bench at his side, beside a small French 
shoe, much trodden down at the heel and 
split at the side, that had apparently served 
as a pattern. Ruth’s thoughts moved slowly, 
and her first impression was that these buff- 
leather shoes were meant for her. 


108 


Rose and Lavender . 


“My, I should look funny! What would 
folks say ? And I ’m sure, too, from this 
distance, that I never could get them on. 
Why, they ’re ever so much too small for 
me! Whatever could Joe be thinking of 
when he ’s got my measure ? ” 

And then all at once it dawned on her 
that they were not for her, and an odd sort 
of feeling came over her, the same that she 
felt the other day in Bridge Street when 
Joe’s new coat disappeared round the corner 
and she was left alone. She felt just like 
that, — alone, though Mother and Mrs. Mar- 
tin were only the other side of the wall, and 
Joe was almost within reach. 

“I wish you ’d go to bed, and Mother too,” 
Joe said irritably, noticing her presence at 
that moment. “I ain’t nearly done.” 

“ Can’t you leave them till Monday ? Oh, 
Joe, they do look nice!” 

“Nice!” he snapped. “Much you know 


Ruth's Birthday . 


109 


about it I I ’ve made a regular mess of 
them, and I only wish 1 ’d never tried to do 
it. I got the uppers in Medington, and I 
thought it would be easy enough to put soles 
to them and turn them out smart; but I ’m 
such a clumsy bungler, she ’ll only laugh at 
them.” 

“ Leave them till Monday, J oe ; they ’ll be 
easier by daylight.” 

“ 1 promised to get them done to-day. ” 

“ But where ’s the good ? You ’ll not see 
her anyways for a few days.” 

“ I want to take them to her to- morrow. ” 

“To-morrow, Joe ? ” 

She had not a very expressive face, — Joe 
used to say it was like one of those wooden 
dolls the children play with, — and her voice 
had not all the lights and shades of tone that 
made Rosie’s feelings so evident to a lis- 
tener; but I think if Joe had had eyes or 
ears for any one but Rosie, he would have 


110 


Rose and Lavender . 


read and heard the bitter disappointment in 
her face and in those words, “ To-morrow, 
Joe ? ” 

“Yes, to-morrow. And, Ruth, you’re 
always so good-natured, I want you to make 
it right with Mother about my going. I 
know she ’ll kick up a fuss about it. ” 


A Pair of Shoes . 


Ill 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A PAIR OF SHOES. 

“ Ilka lassie has her laddie, 

None, they say, hae I.” 

“ I love my love with a C, because he ’s a cobbler.” 

The girls, I beg their pardons, young 
ladies in Miss Featherly’s workroom had 
found out the way to tease Rosie, to bring 
the hot blood into her face and tingling in 
her ears, and the angry tears to her eyes. 
They were all of them wonderfully funny at 
her expense; even the stupidest of them 
could always raise a laugh by holding her 
work and drawing out her thread like a 
shoemaker. There were all sorts of feeble 
little jokes about Miss Bailey “ sticking to 
her last,” or “getting into a (cobbler’s) 
wax,” or “liking her meat rissoled (re« 


112 


Bose and Lavender. 


soled),” or “there being no excuse for some 
people not having sound understanding. ” 
Miss Strange, the girl who had been 
walking with Rosie that first Sunday Joe 
came in, had given a highly amusing ac- 
count of him in the workroom. She had 
a sharp tongue of her own had Ellen 
Strange, and she was not nearly so good- 
looking as Rosie, and was always a little 
jealous of the admiration that Rosie’s pink 
cheeks and blue eyes attracted, and she had 
not even a country cobbler to walk out with 
her on Sunday afternoons; so she made end- 
less fun of poor Joe, of his shabby coat and 
unfashionable collar and clodhopping man- 
ners, and of a nervous little clear-up he gave 
when he was not quite at his ease. “ And 
the way he walked, too, you never did ! with 
his feet all over the place, — there really 
wasn’t room for us three to walk on the 
pavement, it was n’t safe, and one of us 


A Pair of Shoes. 


113 


would have been lamed for life, so 1 just 
took myself off, saying I was going to see 
a friend; and besides, two’s company and 
three ’s none, and I soon found out I was one 
too many. And he talked so funny, too, I 
couldn’t understand ’arf he said,” said Miss 
Strange, who prided herself on her elegant 
speech, unconscious of the disappearance of 
the letter h from many of her words. 
“Miss Bailey seemed to know what he 
meant ; but she ’s used to country talk, and 
besides, he made such sheep’s eyes at her, 
that it was easy enough for her to make out 
his meaning.” 

A good deal of this and more of the same 
sort was told in loud whispers in the work- 
room, some of which reached Rosie’s burn- 
ing ears, and was meant to do so. 

“ She ’s a nasty, spiteful thing ! ” Rosie 
said to herself; “and she ’d be only too glad 

to get a nice-looking young man like Joe 
8 


114 


Tose and Lavender. 


Martin after her, though he don’t look as 
smart as some of them; but I ’ll tell Joe 
he ’s not to come near the place again, as 
they ’re so nasty about him, and he do dress 
funny. I wish he ’d look more like the 
young men at Gibson’s, who turn out on 
Sunday such swells as you would n’t know 
them from gentlemen.” 

“Never- you mind what they say,” whis- 
pered Miss Clarke, while Rosie stood as lay- 
figure to have a skirt draped on her; “if 
he ’s a good, respectable young man that 
you ’ve taken up with, don’t you be laughed 
out of it. A little more to the left, raise 
your arm. They ’re a pack of ninnies, and 
think the coat matters more than the man; 
and they ’re jealous too. That Ellen Strange 
would take a chimney-sweep sooner than be 
an old maid.” 

Her remarks were rather indistinct from 
the pins in her mouth and from her head 


A Pair of Shoes. 


115 


bobbing this way and that to arrange a fold 
or see the general effect. Miss Clarke was 
reckoned old-maidish and frumpish in the 
workroom, and Rosie did not care for sym- 
pathy or encouragement from her; so she 
answered, tossing her head, “Well, I’m 
sure, Miss Strange is quite welcome to Joe 
Martin as far as I am concerned ; he ’s 
nothing to me.” And Miss Clarke offered 
no more advice, and left Rosie to fight her 
own battles. 

Now Rosie was one of those girls who 
seem made to be teased; she would not let 
people forget her or the subject on which 
they could torment her. She let one of the 
girls coax her out of the fact that his name 
was Joe, and this recalled the memory of a 
comic song once popular, but long since for- 
gotten in most places, with a chorus of — 

“ Oh, dear no, not for Joe ! 

If I knows it, not for Joseph ! ” 


116 


Rose and Lavender . 


and this stupid tune was hummed on every 
occasion by every girl who was able to sing 
or who was not. 

Then, after that walk to South Hill, Rosie 
could not keep it to herself that she had had 
a companion on her walk both there and 
back, and then they gave her no peace till 
she had told them all about it; but, silli- 
est of all, the following Sunday, Ruth’s 
spoilt birthday, when Joe came bringing 
the pair of shoes, which had been finished 
with such labor instead of Ruth’s birth- 
day present or the jobs he had promised 
to do for his customers, she could not 
resist, under the most solemn promise of 
secrecy, showing them to one of the young 
ladies. 

Joe had given them so humbly, so apolo- 
getically, he depreciated them so, he made 
light of the trouble they had cost him, and 
yet let out unconsciously what pains he had 


A Pair of Shoes. 


117 


taken with them, and how utterly unworthy 
he felt them to be of her, that even Rosie 
was a little touched, and saw the honest love 
that had tried to please her, more than the 
certainly somewhat clumsy shoes he had 
made. She thanked him so prettily, she 
admired them with such apparent and just 
for the moment real sincerity, she promised 
to wear them, and to think of the giver 
whenever she did so, and when he answered 
that then he should wish her to wear them 
always, she said that would never do, as 
they would wear out so soon and she must 
keep them for best. 

That promise of secrecy that Miss Jones 
gave so readily was not, I need scarcely say, 
kept longer than the time it took to go from 
Rosie’s bedroom to the workroom. How 
could you expect otherwise ? I don’t think 
even Rosie really thought Miss Jones would 
never breathe a word of it. There was 


118 


Rose and Lavender. 


something so ridiculous about the things, so 
irresistibly funny, and it is such a tempta- 
tion to tell a good story, or raise a laugh, 
even if it is at the sacrifice of a promise, and 
besides, as Miss Jones said, Rose Bailey was 
such a very good-natured little thing, and 
she would not mind, indeed, she laughed 
herself and made fun of them. And so the 
secret was told ten minutes after Miss Jones 
left Rosie, and the hearers on their part 
promised faithfully not to let Rosie guess 
they knew anything about it, which promise 
they kept about as well as Miss Jones kept 
hers, though, indeed, Rosie knew well 
enough what the joke was when she heard 
shrieks of laughter, as she opened the work- 
room door, suddenly hushed into suppressed 
giggling when she went in. 

In her inmost heart, I think and hope, 
Rose Bailey felt a little ashamed of herself, 
even when she was joining in the joke, and 


A Pair of Shoes . 


119 


allowed herself to be persuaded to bring the 
shoes to display before the derisive eyes of 
the workroom ; but her shame took the form, 
as vexation with one’s self often does, in 
irritation with some one else, and she 
wished Joe had not been so stupid as to give 
them to her, and she wished he would leave 
her alone and not come after her so. Why 
could n’t he find some other girl over at 
Milling? It was really too bad; and she 
pettishly threw the shoes into a corner be- 
hind the chest of drawers, and tried to forget 
all about them. 

But there was more connected with the 
shoes which Rosie could not forget, for it 
was during that very brief feeling of grati- 
tude to Joe that she allowed herself to be 
betrayed into a half promise to spend Bank 
Holiday either at Milling or, at any rate, 
somewhere with Joe; and somehow she felt 
already that a promise, even a half promise, 


120 


Rose and Lavender. 


to Joe was a serious thing, and one not 
easily to be got out of. 

We have seen that promises among Miss 
Featherly’s young ladies meant very little, 
though they emphasized them with all sorts 
of additional assurances, such as, “On my 
word and honor, ” “ As sure as I stand here, ” 
“ I would n’t breathe a word were it ever 
so!” “Wild horses shouldn’t drag it out of 
me,” and it was a favorite proverb in the 
workroom that “ promises were like pie-crust 
made to be broken.” 

Now, as I said in an earlier chapter, 
August Bank Holiday was much talked of in 
the workroom weeks and even months before- 
hand, and each had her plan for spending the 
day, upon which she expatiated to her fellows, 
or which she nursed up secretly in her heart. 

As Dullington was out of the question, 
Rosie had been undecided as to what form 
the holiday was to take for her, at one time 


A Pair of Shoes. 


121 


nearly settling to go with Miss Jones to 
Hastings for eight hours by the seaside, and 
then being distracted by the tremendous 
posters of the Primrose League fete at Hill- 
more Park, to which Ellen Strange and one 
or two others were going. One of the girls 
was going with some friends to the Crystal 
Palace, and at one time talked Rosie into 
thinking she would rather go there than 
anywhere; and once or twice Miss Sinclair 
had dropped hints that she might get Rosie 
a ticket for that wonderful water picnic to 
which she herself was going. Miss Sinclair 
had rather taken up Rosie of late, princi- 
pally to mark her especial dislike and con- 
tempt for Ellen Strange, who had managed 
to offend her; and to be admitted to anything 
approaching friendship with Miss Sinclair 
was a great distinction in the eyes of the 
workroom, and to be invited to join the ex- 
ceedingly select and elegant water-party was 


122 


Rose and Lavender. 


enough to turn any girl’s head, and especially 
Rosie’s, who was one of the youngest, and 
who, as her relations had lived in Medington, 
was no table to make herself out any grander 
than she was. 

But Miss Sinclair’s hints had been of a 
very vague nature, and Rosie felt, as Bank 
Holiday approached, that it would not do to 
build entirely on that, so that when Joe 
proposed she should come over to Milling 
for the day, or let him take her to one or 
other of the excursions advertised for that 
day, she could not say that she had any 
other engagement, and, just for the moment 
while that feeling of gratitude lasted, and 
while Joe looked at her with such big ear- 
nest eyes, she quite felt as if it would be 
delightful to spend the day with Joe in the 
meadows at Milling, “with all the apple- 
blossom on the trees and the lambs frisking 
about,”. she mentally pictured, oblivious of 


A Pair of Shoes. 


123 


the change worked in such matters by the 
progress of the seasons. 

“ There ’s lots of pretty places I ’d like to 
show you, Rosie,” he said. “ There's a 
wood down by the river where no one ever 
comes ; we ’d have it all to ourselves, Rosie, 
you and me.” 

He liked to say her name so much since 
she had asked him to drop the Miss Bailey, 
and call her by her Christian name, as he 
used when she was little and came over to 
play with him and Ruth. She got a little 
bit tired of hearing it brought in so often, 
and wished he would not, and she was not 
sure that the idea of a long day in a wood, 
all brambles and briers, and no one but Joe 
was so very delightful. Perhaps he saw the 
feeling in her eyes; though, for all their 
smiling and looking up quickly and then 
sinking so prettily, I do not think that she 
had more expression in her blue ones than 


124 


Bose and Lavender. 


there was in Ruth’s small, clear gray eyes, 
which Joe thought so expressionless. 

But anyhow Joe amended the proposal of 
the day alone with Rosie, which to him, 
poor fellow, seemed perfect bliss, to a 
hardly more attractive plan of a picnic tea 
in that same wood, if Farmer Cartright 
would give leave, and lighting a gypsy fire 
and boiling a kettle ; “ and Ruth would come, 
and Mother, and Mrs. Tilbury; only Mother 
hates that sort of thing, and would a deal 
rather have her tea indoors. ” 

He felt after a hit that though Rosie 
smiled and agreed it would be just lovely, 
they were not quite in sympathy in the 
matter, and, with rather a pang of regret, 
he asked if she would rather do anything 
else, and -Rosie said that, of course, it would 
not be nearly so nice, but she had been 
thinking of the excursion to Hastings. 

“Why, have you never seen the sea? 


A Pair of Shoes. 


125 


Oh, you would like it so, and the donkeys ! 
It ’s such fun riding a donkey, and there ’s 
niggers and performing dogs and acrobats 
and a band and lots of organs going all the 
time ! And the sea is so fine, it makes you 
feel all anyhow just to look at it; and if you 
go in a boat, — oh, my! you do feel funny, 
but they say it does you a lot of good.” 

Told by Rosie's pretty little voice, it 
sounded very pleasant to Joe; but then, I 
think, if she had described going into dark- 
est Africa, he would have thought it delight- 
ful as long as he could have pictured the 
sunless gloom and the hideous cannibals as 
being beheld with Rosie's hand in his. 

“But I don’t know how to manage it,” 
Rosie ended, with a sigh; “it costs a lot of 
money, and I ’ve got one or two little bills 
that T must pay or it may get to Miss 
Featherly’s ears, and she ’ll make a fuss 
about it; and T couldn’t go without a new 


126 


Rose and Lavender. 


hat, no, that I couldn’t, were it ever so! 
I 'd rather a lot not go than go a regular 
dowdy! Oh, Joe, you are a flatterer, but I 
know well enough what a sight this hat is, 
with the roses all faded till you 'd hardly 
know what color they was meant for ! Now, 
if I could afford it, there ’s a hat I saw last 
week in Milton’s that would suit me down 
to the ground. T wish they didn’t shut all 
the shops on Sunday, and 1 ‘d show you 
which I mean. It ’s a regular duck of a hat, 
pale gray, with a lovely ostrich -feather and 
a tiny little humming-bird in front! I 
know Ellen Strange wants to have it, when 
she might know it would make her look 
more like pea-soup than ever; but she ’ll get 
it for all that, for it's marked fifteen shil- 
lings ninepence, and I 've got just three and 
one half pence in my parse, and she ’s a 
regular miser, and always has money for 
anything she wants ! ” 


A Pair of Shoes. 


127 


Rosie did not think it necessary to men- 
tion to Joe that her purse had been emptied 
by the purchase of a new dress, — a white 
embroidered muslin, which she was making 
at every stray minute she could devote to her 
own work. You see if Miss Sinclair really 
did ask her to that picnic Rosie would be 
obliged to be properly dressed. She had 
seen Miss Sinclair’s costume for the occa- 
sion, and though, of course, Rosie could not 
pretend to come anywhere near it, still she 
felt that if it were only a fine day, nothing 
would look better than a white muslin, as 
she had heard one of Miss Featherly’s 
grandest customers observe in discussing her 
own daughter’s dress for a garden-party at 
a duke’s. 

But perhaps Miss Sinclair had gone * 
rather beyond her tether when she asked 
Rosie if she would like to come with her, 
for she said nothing more on the subject, 


128 


Rose and Lavender. 


and Rosie made up her mind that, short of 
the picnic, the excursion to Hastings would 
be next best if J oe would stand treat, and in 
a big excursion there was always such a 
mixture of people that Joe’s countrified ap- 
pearance and manners would not be so very 
conspicuous, and her Sunday frock would do 
well enough for that, for J oe thought what- 
ever she had on beautiful. 

It is as well to have two strings to your 
bow, and Rosie kept the plan of the excur- 
sion to Hastings with Joe as her second 
string in case nothing further turned up 
about Miss Sinclair’s picnic; and Joe, as 
he counted the cost of two tickets for the 
excursion to Hastings and a liberal allow- 
ance for jam tarts, added on a mysterious 
fifteen shillings ninepence to the necessary 
expenses. 


Ruth's Birthday . 


129 


CHAPTER IX. 
ruth’s birthday. 

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley, 

And leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy 

Burns. 

“I don’t know what yon and Joe have 
fallen out about, I’m sure,” Mrs. Martin 
said. “ Why, you was always together, and 
what one said the other swore to. I don’t 
say as it ’s all your fault, Ruth Tilbury, but 
men wants a deal of humoring, and you ’ve 
a short way with you at times as I dare say 
you don’t mean nothing by, but which a man 
notices and don’t like.” 

It was gradually dawning on the two 
mothers’ minds that Joe was, as they put it, 
“ after Rose Bailey ; ” and their first tendency 

was to blame Ruth for this upsetting of their 
9 


130 


Rose and Lavender . 


fondly cherished plan, and it never occurred 
to either of them that she might be the 
greatest sufferer in the matter. 

Mrs. Martin grew fiery, and Mrs. Tilbury 
querulous over the subject, — Mrs. Martin 
declaring that if some folks, she would n’t 
name no names, had behaved proper, Joe 
would n’t have been drove to take up with a 
pink-faced simpleton as would n’t know how 
to make his home comfortable; and Mrs. 
Tilbury shed tears, and said it was n’t no 
doing of hers, and she ’d always felt to Joe 
like a mother, and brought up Ruth to do 
the same (which was not quite what she 
meant, but understood by her hearers), but 
folks was that contrary there was no being 
topsides with them. 

As long as Ruth said a word in defence of 
Rosie the two women combined in severe 
remarks on her silliness and helplessness 
and vanity; but when Ruth relapsed into 


Ruth's Birthday. 


131 


silence, they gradually left off agreeing in 
their condemnation, and Mrs. Martin, re- 
senting something which she fancied was a 
reproach to Joe, took up the cudgels lustily 
for Rosie, and declared that he might do a 
lot worse, and that for her part she was not 
going to say a word against the girl (having 
already said a good many), and she was not 
one of those mothers as thought their sons 
must be tied to their apron-strings and have 
their wives chosen for them, and if a girl 
was a good, respectable girl and did her 
best, she often made as good a wife as them 
as sets up for being so out-of-the-way sensi- 
ble and managing. 

Ruth bore this and many similar hits with 
stoicism, but she was not sorry when Mrs. 
Martin went off to church, leaving her alone 
with her mother, who had fretted herself 
into a nervous headache, which made her 
unfit to go to church or to be left alone. 


132 


Bose and Lavender. 


It was not a very cheerful birthday for 
Ruth, for Mrs. Tilbury, when she got into 
this nervous condition, was firmly impressed 
with the near approach of her death, and 
could talk of nothing else ; and the gloom of 
the prospect was intensified to-day by the feel- 
ing that Ruth would have to turn out into the 
world, as she could not stop on when Joe 
brought home another girl as his wife. 

“It don’t do, Ruth, for two families to 
live together. Don’t you never do it. It 
did n’t do amiss with me and Mrs. Martin ; 
but when a young wife comes in she wants to 
be missus, and natural too, in her own 
house, and the husband ’s bound to go with 
his wife, even against his own mother, let 
alone any one as ain’t no kin, as you ’d be, 
Ruth. I ’d liefer think of you in service, 
that I would, and you ’d get a good place as 
laundry-maid. any day. But there! I never 
thought it would come to that, and many ’s 


Ruth's Birthday . 


133 


the time I ’ve thought when I got one of my 
attacks as I ’d like just to live to see you 
and J oe man and wife. And there ’s them 
sheets as I put away a-purpose, and a power 
of little things besides, and them netted 
curtains what my grandmother made her 
very own self, and that velvet pincushin 
worked with beads as I got out of the lucky 
bag at the bazaar when you was a baby, 
Ruth. Why, I ’ve got a drawer full of 
things pretty near; don’t you mind when I 
cleared them out last spring, to make sure 
as the moth had n’t got in, and you asked 
what I was keeping them all up for, and I 
said, says I, wait and see. But there ! any 
one may have ’em as likes now, for one may 
wait till doomsday afore one sees what 1 ’d 
got so plain in my mind’s eye then. Oh, 
life ’s an aggravatin’, disappointin’ business, 
and it all goes criss-cross and contrary, and 
it’s no use setting one’s heart on nothing! 


134 


Rose and Lavender . 


And there you sit, without a word of comfort 
to your poor old mother. You don’t care, 
not you ! It all runs off you like water off 
a duck’s back, and I don’t believe you ’d 
turn a hair if I was in my grave, and it was 
you as had put me there. Why, bless my 
heart, Ruth, whatever is the matter ? Don’t 
ee now ! I did n’t mean to vex you. Lor ! 
whatever was I a-sayin’ ? ' Don’t mind a 
stupid old woman. Dearie me! and your 
birthday and all, and you as never cries were 
it ever so, and your mother’s right hand, 
and Mrs. Martin’s too, and worth a dozen of 
Joe.” 

For Ruth had thrown her apron suddenly 
over her head and burst out crying, as she 
had not done since she was quite a little 
girl and Joe had fallen into a pond on 
the way to school and come near being 
drowned. 

Ruth’s crying was not at all of an orna- 


Ruth's Birthday. 


135 


mental nature ; for my part, I do not believe 
crying ever is, though one hears of the crys- 
tal drop in beauty’s eye, and of diamonds 
gathering on long lashes and stealing down 
lovely cheeks. I think crying disfigures the 
prettiest face; and with Ruth, it made her 
eyes red, and her nose and lips swollen, and 
her cheeks hot and shiny, and she sobbed, 
and choked, and shook, and blew her nose, 
and mopped her eyes in a very inelegant 
manner. 

Mrs. Tilbury was quite frightened at this 
demonstration in the usually placid Ruth; 
but it did not last very long. She sobbed for 
a bit with her head on her arms on the table, 
and then with her head on her mother’s 
knees, sitting on the little wooden stool her 
father had made for her when she was a 
baby; and long before Mrs. Martin came in 
from church she was quite herself again, only 
with a very swelled nose, and chinks of eyes 


136 


Rose and Lavender. 


which all the splashing with cold water 
would not rectify. 

“ Don’t tell Mrs. Martin what a silly I ’ve 
made of myself,” she said; and her mother 
answered, — 

“No, sure! She needn’t go for to think 
we minds about Joe nor who he takes up 
with. ” 

So when Mrs. Martin came in she found 
supper laid for her and Joe, and Ruth called 
down the stairs in a cheerful tone of voice, 
that “ Mother ’s that sadly as she ’ve gone to 
bed, and I ’ll bide with her a bit till she 
drops off. I ’ve took a bit of supper with 
her, so you needn’t wait if I ain’t down.” 

To judge from Mrs. Tilbury’s somewhat 
loud breathing, you would have thought she 
dropped off very soon ; but Ruth still sat by 
the patchwork curtains of the bed, and did 
not go down, though Mrs. Martin came 
twice to the foot of the stairs, and softly 


Ruth's Birthday . 


137 


called, “Ruth, ain’t your mother asleep 
yet ? ” 

And then Ruth heard Joe’s step outside. 
She could tell his step ever so far away, and 
she listened, wondering what reception his 
mother would give him. 

It was better they should have it out to- 
gether about Rosie ; it would not do any 
good her being there, — indeed, she some- 
times fancied that Mrs. Martin’s tongue 
was sharper when a third person was pres- 
ent, and if she said a few sharp things it 
could not be helped, and Joe must put up 
with them. And yet she listened quite 
nervously to the tones of the two voices, as 
she remembered doing years ago, when Joe 
had played truant from school, and his 
mother with a dreadful look of determina- 
tion on her face had taken down the cane 
which was ostentatiously displayed on the 
shelf, but never hitherto used. Ruth had 


138 


Rose and Lavender. 


fled upstairs then in an agony of shame and 
terror on Joe’s account, calling Mrs. Martin 
a wicked, cruel, bad woman to hurt her 
Joe, entreating to be beaten instead of him, 
stopping her ears so as not to hear him 
cry, and then holding her breath to listen to 
what seemed such deadly silence below. And 
after all, on that occasion the truant Joe had 
come in with a cut finger, and instead of a 
caning was made much of and pitied, and 
Ruth was sent to bed without any supper for 
having been so naughty. 

She only wished now that Joe could come 
in with a cut finger or something to excite 
his mother’s pity; and she listened, fancy- 
ing Mrs. Martin’s voice was sharp and Joe’s 
surly, till suddenly she heard Joe laugh, and 
then she knew it was all right. 

What a lot Joe seemed to have to say! 
Was it all about Rosie ? His voice went on 
and on, with only a word now and then from 


Ruth's Birthday . 


139 


his mother. Ruth was not generally a 
curious person, but this evening she could 
not resist the impulse of going softly down 
the stairs and peeping through the half- 
closed door at the bottom. 

Joe was sitting on that very same little 
stool where she had sat a couple of hours 
before with her head on her mother’s lap. 
He was leaning forward talking away with 
much animation, and Mrs. Martin’s hands 
were on his shoulders, and she was listen- 
ing with such a pleased, smiling face, that 
there was no doubt that things were going 
smoothly, and that it was all right about 
Rosie, and Ruth slipped softly upstairs again 
and went to bed. 


140 


Rose and Lavender . 


CHAPTER X. 
ruth’s help. 

Give unto me, made lowly wise, 

The spirit of self-sacrifice. 

Wordsworth. 

“Mr. Martin would be obliged if you 
could settle his little bill.” This message 
was taken in by the servant to such of Joe’s 
customers as kept servants. “Joe Martin 
have called round after what we owes for 
mending,” other customers’ wives told their 
husbands. “ That J oe Martin ’s been bothering 
after what ’s owing for them boots of yours, 
though I tell him they ’re wearing shameful, 
and ain’t worth half what he asks for them. ” 
This was another form of putting it. 

“You see, sir,” Joe explained to the vicar 
when he went for the second time to ask if 


Ruth's Help . 


141 


it would be convenient to settle the bill for 
mending the many little pairs of boots which 
the vicarage children managed to kick out 
at the toes or rub out at the heels, in a 
manner and with a rapidity that would be 
almost incredible to any except the mothers 
of large families, — “ you see, sir, I would 
not trouble you, but I ’m expecting a heavy 
call next week — leastways,” said Joe, get- 
ting a little red and stammering over his 
explanation, “ I shall want the money to pay 
away. ” 

And he was glad the vicar could not see 
the pretty little hat with the ostrich-feather 
and humming-bird that made it so urgent to 
get the money before many days were past. 

It seemed quite extraordinary how difficult 
it was to get the sum he wanted. There was 
not one of his customers who did not really 
mean to pay him sooner or later, — even Tom 
Shore was safe to do so ultimately, with a 


142 


Rose and Lavender . 


good deal of grumbling no doubt, but still 
honestly, — but wherever J oe called with those 
neatly made out little accounts on blue -lined 
paper, there was some delay or difficulty. 
“No change.” “The master was out, and 
would not be home for a few days. ” “ Mr. 

Somebody Else was ill and could not be dis- 
turbed. ” Even the vicar said he preferred 
paying at quarter day ; and another customer 
was a little bit huffy, and asked if Joe 
thought he was going to run away, and 
had n’t he better put in the bailiffs at once ? 

J oe got into a perfect fever of nervousness 
about that hat, lest it should be snapped up 
by Ellen Strange or some admiring be- 
holder; for if, as Rosie described, it was 
displayed in the window at Milton’s, was it 
likely that such a gem would be left for 
many days without finding a purchaser ? and 
if it was gone, how could he possibly de- 
scribe it to the shopwoman so as to get any- 


Ruth's Help. 


143 


thing resembling it, or be sure that Rosie 
would like any of the others that might 
appear satisfactory to his ignorant masculine 
eye ? He knew that Rosie would never con- 
sent to take the money and choose a hat for 
herself, and besides that is > such a stupid, 
matter-of-fact way of making a present, just 
like he should give anything to Ruth, as he 
had done actually once or twice when he had 
been unable to think of any acceptable pres- 
ent for one who, like Ruth, had no little 
whims or fancies. “ There, Ruth, ” he would 
say, “you’d best choose something for your- 
self, and then there won’t be no mistake 
about it.” 

He had received promises of payment of 
one or two bills next week, which would 
cover the actual expenses of the excursion 
for him and Rosie, and there was no hurry 
about that; but the hat could not wait till 
next week, and somehow he could not make 


144 


Rose and Lavender. 


up the necessary fifteen shillings ninepence 
to secure it. So again he had recourse to 
Ruth, though the three pounds she had lent 
him already was not yet repaid. 

Ruth was cutting the lavender off the 
great bush, and putting it spread on a paper 
in the sun to dry. The air was full of the 
sweet, old-fashioned homely perfume, and 
she had a great sheaf of the cut spears in her 
apron as Joe came out and stood watching 
her, and she kept on cutting stem after stem 
and adding them to the sheaf. 

No one but her mother had known of 
Ruth’s sudden and unaccountable outburst 
of crying on her birthday; and if next day 
her eyes were a little bit swelled and red, 
there was no one to notice, or if they did, 
they only thought how much prettier certain 
blue eyes were in comparison. 

Mrs. Martin talked continually about 
Rosie, and very much in her favor ; so much 


RutNs Help. 


145 


so, that it might have suggested to less 
simple and unsuspicious people than Ruth 
and Mrs. Tilbury that she was trying to talk 
away misgivings on the subject, and silence 
doubts in her own heart, for certainly 
neither of her hearers said a word in con- 
tradiction of the praises of Rosie that Mrs. 
Martin poured out at all times and seasons. 

Perhaps Joe felt that his mother’s appro- 
bation was not very deeply rooted, and that 
the less strain that was put upon it at pres- 
ent the better, and this was the reason that 
he did not go to her to make up the impera- 
tive fifteen shillings ninepence which would 
have seemed the most natural proceeding. 

“Ruth,” he said, “I wanted to speak a 
word or two about that money as you lent me 
the other day. ” 

“ Oh ! J oe, there ain’t no hurry about 
that. Don’t you bother your head about 
it.” 


10 


146 


Rose and Lavender. 


“ Oh ! I ain’t forgot it, never fear, and I ’ll 
pay it right enough next week most like ; but 
I was wondering if you ’d make it up to four 
pounds, or three pounds ten shillings would 
do if you ’d a ten shillings handy. There ’s 
something very particular as I wanted, and 
I don’t want Mother to know — ” 

“ Is it a present for her, Joe ? Why, her 
birthday ain’t for ever so long. And if it ’s 
a large print hymn-book as you ’re going to 
get for her — ” 

“It’s not a present,” Joe interrupted, a 
little disconcerted, — “ leastways not for 
Mother. ” 

Snip, snip, snip, went Ruth’s scissors, 
steadily cutting off the gray lavender spikes. 
A butterfly came and poised for a minute 
over the bush, and then fluttered away to the 
rose-bush by the door covered with pink 
blossoms. 

“How sweet that lavender do smell ! ” Joe 


Ruth's Help. 


147 


said rather awkwardly, wishing that Ruth 
would say something or ask some question, 
so as to make it easier for him to go on. 

And so at last she did. “ It ’s a present 
for Rosie Bailey you’re thinking of,” she 
said. “ I thought you gave her one on 
Sunday. ” 

“Oh, those shoes!” he answered. “They 
wasn’t to be called a present,* they wasn’t 
worth giving. I was quite ashamed to give 
such things ; only she ’s so nice, Ruth, she ’s 
pleased with anything. You should ’a’ seen 
her when she opened the parcel and saw 
them shoes ! But I ’d like to give her some- 
thing worth having, and I found out, without 
her having a notion that I ’d guessed it, how 
she ’ve set her heart on something, and I 
can’t rest till I ’ve got it for her. But I 
don’t know how I ’m to do it unless you 
help. ” 

Snip, snip, the lavender was nearly all 


148 


Rose and Lavender. 


cut, and Ruth seemed too intent on the job 
to pay much attention to J oe, and he turned 
away at last rather huffily. “Oh, well, 
never mind, it can’t be helped. All 1 know 
is that I’d do it for you any day.” 

He went back listlessly to his work, and 
was trying to make up his mind to put the 
subject before his Mother in some inoffensive 
way, when Ruth came in. She had so little 
expression Joe always said, and yet even he 
noticed now that she looked strange, and she 
spoke short and gasping, as if she were 
out of breath, and the words came out with 
difficulty. 

“Look here, Joe,” she said, “I didn’t 
think of this when you was talking just 
now. ” And she held out half a sovereign to 
him. “ I thought as I had n’t anything as I 
could lend you, and it takes a day or two to 
get it out of the savings-bank, but I ’d forgot 
this. I ’d put it by against your birthday. 


Ruth's Help. 


149 


I had n’t settled what 1 ’d spend it on, but 
I wanted to give you something as you ’d 
really fancy. Well, it ’s as long as it ’s 
broad ; there it is, you may as well have it 
now as then. It don’t make no odds, and 
if you ’d liefer spend it on Rosie Bailey than 
on yourself, why, please yourself, it ’s all 
the same to me.” 

“ Oh, Ruth, you are good, but you must n’t 
give it me ; it ’s only lending, and I ’ll pay it 
back as sure — ” 

“No!” she interrupted him quite sharply. 
“No, you won’t. You may pa^ me back 
them three pounds if you like, but this here ’s 
a present ; so don’t say another word about 
paying it back, or I ’ll be cross. Oh, it ain’t 
near tea-time yet,” for Joe was looking at 
his watch. “ You ’ll have time to finish that 
job, and I ’ve a deal to do, so I can’t waste 
any more time.” 

She was busy till tea-time with some 


150 


Rose and Lavender. 


starching that had come in unexpectedly. 
She felt quite light hearted, and sang over 
her work, hushing herself now and then 
when she remembered how her out-of-tune 
singing annoyed Joe’s ear. It had cost her 
a good deal giving that half-sovereign, but it 
had brought, as sacrifices often do, a peace of 
mind that was worth a great deal more. 

“Where’s Joe?” she asked, when she 
came in from the wash house to tea. 

“Oh, Joe,” said Mrs. Martin, “he ’ve 
gone off to Medington. He came in in a 
great bustle an hour ago, and said he must 
go right off. I didn’t rightly understand 
what he was going for, but I think it ’s about 
that leather as he ’d ordered last week and 
hadn’t come. I should have thought he 
might have written about it.” 

“ Here ’s a box from Milton’s for Miss 
Bailey.” The dirty, shock-headed maid 


Ruth's Help. 


151 


who waited on the young ladies at Miss 
Featherly’s, put her head into the workroom 
that evening and made this announcement. 

“It can’t be for me,” Rosie said, hardly 
looking up from her work. 

“It’s some mistake,” said Miss Jones, 
“ or perhaps it ’s those trimmings Miss 
Featherly ordered.” 

“No,” said the servant, “it’s wrote as 
plain as a pikestaff, ‘Miss Bailey, at Miss 
Featherly ’s ; ’ and the young man as brought 
it — it were n’t Milton’s boy, the young im- 
perence ! I know him well enough — said 
as how I was to be sure and give it to Miss 
Bailey to onst.” 

“ Oh, my ! it ’s a present ; open it, do-ee 
now ! ” 

“ He ’s made you another pair of shoes, 
see if he ain’t!” 

So Rosie opened the box with somewhat 
trembling hands. She knew it must be from 


152 


Rose and Lavender . 


Joe, and she guessed it was a hat; but she 
was mortally afraid that it might not be the 
one she wanted, but some glaring, vulgar 
thing that he might think very fine, but that 
she would not be able to abide, and which 
would make all the girls laugh. 

But no, when the box was opened and the 
silver paper taken off, there was the very 
identical little gray hat with the ostrich- 
feather and dainty little humming-bird, 
sparkling red and green under the gas in the 
workroom. 

There was a general exclamation of ad- 
miration; even Miss Sinclair condescended 
to praise it, and Miss Strange could not 
think of anything depreciating to say on the 
spur of the moment, and only remembered 
next day that it was just a little bit faded 
from having been in Milton’s window for 
ever so long. 

“ The price was reduced, dear, was n’t it, 


Ruth's Help. 


153 


on that account ? I really was half inclined 
to buy it myself if it had n’t been for that, 
but that sort of gray fades to such a ’orrid 
color. ” 

As Rosie took the hat out of the box and 
held it up before the young ladies’ admiring 
eyes, a bit of lavender dropped out and fell 
on the floor. I do not know how it came 
there exactly ; but as J oe stood by the bush 
talking to Ruth, he took one of the spikes 
out of her apron and put it in his button- 
hole without thinking, and there, I suppose, 
it remained unnoticed as he went into Med- 
ington, and fell out while the hat was being 
packed up at Milton’s. 

There was no train into Medington just at 
that time, so he walked both ways; and as 
he came near the town, he quickened his 
pace almost to a run, so consumed was he 
with the fear that the hat would be gone. 
He was nervous, too, lest he should not be 


154 


Rose and Lavender. 


able to distinguish which it was, or might 
have forgotten some particular point Rosie 
had described ; but as soon as he saw it in a 
corner of Milton’s window, he recognized it, 
and he elbowed past some ladies into the 
shop quite rudely, and was regarded with 
suspicion by the shop-walker as a possible 
pickpocket. 

But five minutes later he had the box 
containing the hat in his hand, and was on 
his way to Bridge Street, where, as we have 
seen, he handed it in, desiring the servant 
to give it at once to Miss Bailey. 

He waited about for a few minutes, half 
hoping that Rosie would come out to express 
her pleasure and thanks; but soon feeling 
that this was unreasonable, he set off on his 
long walk home, hardly conscious of the dis- 
tance or of his want of supper, so full was he 
of the pleasure of having pleased Rosie. 


Bank Holiday . 


155 


CHAPTER XI. 

BANK HOLIDAY. 

If all the year were playing holidays, 

To sport would be as tedious as to work. 

Shakspeare. 

Bank Holiday that year was all that Bank 
Holiday should be, and all that Bank Holiday 
very often is not. The sun shone in a cloud- 
less sky and smiled on the holiday people all 
day long, without a shower to spoil holiday 
clothes or a dull half-hour to spoil holiday 
tempers. 

Joe had to be off early, but he would have 
been ready to start hours earlier if by that 
means he could have lengthened his day with 
Rosie. Ruth heard him stirring soon after 
midnight, and drawing back his curtain to 
look out at the starry sky, as if he expected 


156 


Rose and Lavender . 


to see the dawn breaking already. I do not 
think he slept much, being too full of antici- 
pation and of fear of oversleeping himself in 
the morning. Neither did Ruth sleep much, 
having made up her mind that he should 
have some breakfast before he started. 

The excursion train left Medington at 
seven ; so, as J oe had to walk in, he must 
leave Milling at five. Rosie was to meet him 
at the Medington station, and there were 
minute arrangements as to which part of the 
station they were to meet at, as most likely 
the excursion would be crowded, and it 
would never do to miss one another. So 
Rosie had promised to be in front of the 
book-stall punctually at a quarter to seven. 
Late ? oh no ! it was not likely. Miss 
J ones was going too, and she was never late 
for anything, — no more was Rosie when she 
really wanted to be in time. It was more 
likely Joe would be late with that long walk 


Bank Holiday . 


157 


from Milling. Joe late ? why, he would have 
spent the night in front of the book-stall, if 
the railway authorities would have permitted 
it, rather than have been a minute late. He 
would scarcely stop to eat the rasher of 
bacon Ruth had cooked for him, and he 
burned his mouth with the tea which she 
coaxed him to drink, under the pretence that 
his coat wanted brushing, and that he might 
just as well finish his breakfast while she 
did it. 

It was such a lovely morning; after Joe 
had gone, Ruth stood for some time in the 
garden. It was too early to get breakfast or 
tidy up or light the copper, or begin any of 
the work ; and besides .to-day was a holiday, 
and it ought not to be just like any other 
day. She let herself dream a little bit, and 
did not pull herself up short and say, “Don’t 
be a goose, Ruth Tilbury,” or “Stuff a rub- 
bish,” or such-like rousing self -treatment, 


158 


Rose and Lavender . 


but allowed herself to fancy how it might 
have been if she had been going for an excur- 
sion with Joe, — not to Hastings, that was 
too ambitious an idea even for day-dreaming, 
but somewhere nearer and cheaper ; and she 
settled what she would have worn, and how 
she would have managed so as to leave 
things comfortable for her mother and Mrs. 
Martin during her absence. 

“But there! Joe would have found it ter- 
rible dull with only me, so it ’s all for the 
best. He ’ll have a lovely day. My ! ain’t 
it going to be hot ! and he ’s been wanting to 
go to the sea this ever so long, and was that 
disappointed when the choir excursion went 
to London instead. I expect it will do him 
a power of good. They do say as the sea air 
quite sets folks up as ain’t strong. ” 

The birds seem more friendly early in the 
morning than they do later in the day ; they 
have the world more to themselves then, and 


Bank Holiday. 


159 


take advantage of the opportunity for a good 
deal of conversation among themselves, to 
which they are not unwilling to admit 
such human creatures as understand bird- 
language. A robin came and perched on 
the railings close by Ruth, and looked at her 
with bright, inquisitive eyes, as if he would 
like to hear all about that excursion she was 
dreaming of. A thrush from the yew-tree 
by the gate poured out quite a long story of 
her domestic troubles and of the iniquities 
of the cat, and a starling on the water-spout 
flirted his very short tail and complained in 
his querulous note of the scarcity of worms. 

All through the morning Ruth’s mind was 
full of Joe and what he was doing. Now he 
had met Rosie ; now they were in the train ; 
now they were going along through the coun 
try, harvest-fields and meadows, towns and 
villages ; now they were near Hastings 
Ruth had not much power of imagination, 


160 


Hose and Lavender. 


and her only idea of the sea was connected 
with a picture of a shipwreck with huge 
waves breaking over it, and she hoped Joe 
would not be too venturesome. 

Mrs. Tilbury and Mrs. Martin had a feel- 
ing that Bank Holiday should be observed in 
some way if not by themselves, at any rate 
by Ruth, and they got quite irritated at 
her settling down steadily after breakfast to 
work. 

She was not a bit sulky or dumpish over 
it, she did not at all give herself the airs of 
a martyr because Joe had gone off for a holi- 
day and she was left at home. I think Ruth 
really liked work, and she would not have 
thought herself at all hardly used if she had 
stood at the wash-tub the whole of Bank 
Holiday, but her mother and Mrs. Martin 
would not have it so. 

“That’s the worst of Ruth, she don’t 
know a bit how to amuse herself. 1 ’m 


Bank Holiday. 


161 


always telling her as all work and no play 
make Jack a dull boy. There! put them 
things by till to-morrow. There ain’t no 
such mortial hurry. Any one would think 
to see you they was wanted directly minute. 
It do seem to me as if you thought no one 
could hold an iron but you.” 

“There, why can’t you just change your 
gown and enjoy yourself a bit this after- 
noon ? Ain’t there any one as you ’d like to 
go and see ? Me and your mother can look 
after one another well enough. We ain’t so 
old as that comes to, as we can’t get our- 
selves a cup of tea, and wants you always 
pottering about after us.” 

So Ruth put on her Sunday dress and 
bonnet and set off to enjoy herself, which is 
sometimes a very difficult thing to do, and 
trying to play makes Jack a duller boy than 
all the work in the world if he is not play- 
fully inclined. 


11 


162 


Rose and Lavender. 


But at any rate Ruth thought she could 
get out of the way, and her mother would 
not know but she was enjoying herself with 
the best of them. She could not think of 
any of the neighbors she cared to go to see, 
and those she thought of were most likely 
gone out for the day, or had company, and 
might not care to see her. 

She took the path across the fields leading 
to that wood which Joe had described to 
Rosie. They used to go blackberrying there 
when she and Joe were children, and once 
they had had a picnic tea there, and lighted 
a fire and boiled a kettle as Joe proposed to 
do again. Ruth thought she would go and 
see if the blackberries were getting ripe, and 
she could sit down there a bit under the 
trees, for the sun was hot and there was no 
hurry to get home. 

It was a pretty place ; even Ruth, who, J oe 
said, did not notice anything except to see 


Bank Holiday . 


163 


if it were clean, observed how prettily the 
light fell through openings in the thick 
foliage on to the fern and undergrowth and 
the smooth stems of the beech-trees, and how 
emerald green and how velvet soft the moss 
was on which she trod, and how, lower 
down, little peeps of the river showed silver 
or nut brown in the sun or shade, and with 
forget-me-not clustering among the rushes 
at the edge. 

She would get a bunch of forget-me-not to 
take home, she thought, it lasted ever so 
long in water and grew, and J oe liked it ; so 
she went on down to the river, and soon had 
a good bunch of forget-me-not and meadow- 
sweet. She was just retracing her steps 
when a sound among the underwood at- 
tracted her attention, and pushing aside the 
branches she saw a man lying face down- 
ward among the fern. 

It was a very lonely place, and many girls 


164 


Rose and Lavender . 


would have been scared at finding a man 
there, most likely a tramp, and perhaps a 
tipsy one; but Ruth was not easily fright- 
ened, and besides, impossible as it seemed, 
there was something familiar in the look of 
the man lying there, dusty and dirty, with 
green stains on his coat from the trees and 
bushes, and a long spray of that clinging 
weed they call goose grass straggling across 
his shoulders. 

It was Joe, — Joe, she had just been pic- 
turing by the sea with Rosie, — Joe, who 
had set off this morning so trim and jaunty, 
with a look of delightful anticipation on his 
face, and who would not be back till well- 
nigh to-morrow morning. “Why, Joe!” 
she cried. “Joe ! it ain’t never you ! How- 
ever did you come here ? ” 

She could get nothing out of him at first. 
He only drew away irritably from her when 
she sat down by him and began pulling the 


Bank Holiday . 


165 


weed from his coat and rubbing off the 
green stains. That new coat she had felt so 
proud of. 

“ Can’t you leave me alone ? ” he said. 
“Who ’d have thought of your coming both- 
ering here ? ” 

So she sat still and waited and coaxed 
that new “ bowler ” hat back into shape, for 
it had had a knock, and there was an ugly 
dint on one side, and by and by the story all 
came out. But I had better not give it in 
Joe’s words, for they were slow in coming at 
first, and there were many digressions, and 
I do not think many of my readers are likely 
to be as patient with poor Joe as that lis- 
tener in the wood. 

He had reached Medington station in ex- 
cellent time, and had taken up his posi- 
tion in front of the book-stall, watching 
anxiously the station door, through which 
parties of excursionists kept pouring, seeing 


166 


Rose and Lavender. 


many meetings and hearing cheerful con- 
gratulations on the beauty of the day and the 
pleasure in store for them. There were 
other young men meeting other girls, but 
none of the latter were fit to hold a candle 
to Rosie, and those young men, though they 
looked so pleased, could not feel half what 
he did at the prospect of a day with Rosie. 

He was one of the first to take the tickets 
when the booking-office was open, and then 
hurried back to the book-stall, sure of find- 
ing her there, but she had not come. He 
went more than once to the gates to look 
along the road by which she must come, and 
returned hastily, for fear by any means he 
should miss her. Quarter to seven — ten 
minutes to — five minutes to — the crowd 
thickened, the train was up at the platform, 
the passengers were taking their places. 
Joe was not an experienced traveller; he 
was always a little bit nervous and fluttered 


Bank Holiday. 


167 


when going in a train, and he was quite 
trembling with agitation now as the crowd 
pushed on up the platform, leaving him 
alone by the book -stall. Could he have 
missed her ? Was there any mistake about 
the place of meeting? The bell rang, the 
doors were being slammed to, and the por- 
ters were shouting, “Any more for the 
Hastings excursion ? ” when a party entered 
the station and Joe darted to meet them, 
sure that one of them must be Rosie. But 
he fell back disappointed, and they ran past 
him, only reaching the train just in time 
to jump into an already over-full carriage, 
and the train steamed slowly out of the 
station. 

“That was a near thing,” panted one of 
the party. “And oh, my goodness! I won- 
der if that was Miss Bailey’s friend waiting 
there ? I was to tell him she was n’t coming ; 
but I really had n’t time, had I ? ” 


168 


Rose and Lavender. 


So J oe waited for an hour before the book- 
stall, getting more and more depressed, and 
yet persuading himself that he would not say 
a word of reproach to Rosie when she came. 
What did it matter where they spent the 
day, as long as they were together? 

Another excursion train was despatched, 
and when that was gone J oe left the station 
and set off into the town to Bridge Street. 
The streets were full of holiday people, has- 
tening in different directions, all bent on 
enjoying themselves; it seemed to Joe that 
he was the only solitary one who belonged 
to no merry party, nor had one all-sufficient 
companion. 

He scrutinized every one he met, and 
more than once his heart jumped into his 
mouth, and the depression and disappoint- 
ment vanished like magic at the sight of a 
trim little figure or smart dress; but the 
clouds always rolled back again, and heavier 


Bank Holiday . 


169 


and darker than before the momentary gleam 
of hope. 

When he reached Bridge Street he passed 
and repassed the house ever so many times, 
looking up at the windows. Rosie had so 
solemnly exhorted him never to come to the 
house, that it was not till nearly ten that he 
ventured to ring the bell and ask the servant 
if Miss Bailey were at home. 

He thought she looked rather oddly at him 
as she answered no, but she thought Miss 
Bailey had left a note for him; and she 
seemed to be a long time finding it, and 
through a half-open door he heard a lot of 
whispering; but he forgot all this, and did 
not observe the grin on the girl’s face when 
she put the note into his hands, so eager was 
he to receive the explanation of Rosie’s not 
coming. It was the first letter, too, he had 
ever had from her, and he hurried off to find 
some quiet place to read it, and he took the 


170 


Rose and Lavender . 


turn down to the river, where, on the towing- 
path by the bridge, he could stand aside out 
of the way of passers-by and open it. You 
may be sure he did not notice that the writ- 
ing was bad, and that he was not too critical 
about the spelling. 

It was a simple little letter, — just like 
Rosie, he thought. She was so “dis- 
sapointed” (what did it matter if the word 
was spelled with two s’s and one p ?), but she 
had been sent for by a friend who was 
very ill. So “sory” (with one r), but she 
“hopped” (with two £>’s) he would have a 
“hapy” (with one p) day without her, and 
remained his affectionate (I hardly know how 
this was spelled, because there was a blot) 
friend Rosie. 

Poor little Rosie, kind little girl, giving 
up her one holiday for the sake of a friend, 
unselfishly hoping he would have a pleasant 
day, as if that would be possible without 


Bank Holiday. 


171 


her ! If only she had said where the friend 
lived, Joe would have been well content to 
spend the day outside the house if he could 
be of no help within, on the chance of a 
word or a look from the sweet little nurse, 
or of being able to go on errands for her or 
save some slight trouble. 

He almost forgot his own disappointment 
in his admiration of her conduct, and did 
not give a thought to the useless excursion 
tickets in his pocket. He did not even envy 
the gay people who were embarking on the 
steam-launch at the steps by the bridge. 
Was there one of these smart-looking girls, 
he wondered, who would give up a day’s 
pleasure for a sick friend ? He went a few 
steps nearer to watch them go on to the boat ; 
and a party coming up behind brushed 
against him as they passed to meet a smil- 
ing, dandified young man who had evidently 
been on the look-out for them. 


172 


Rose and Lavender . 


“I thought you were never coming,’’ he 
said; and a strangely familiar girl’s voice 
answered, “I told Miss Sinclair we should 
be late.” 

A girl in a white dress and a gray hat 
with an ostrich-feather and a humming-bird 
in it. Was it the voice, was it the hat, or 
was it the face that Joe recognized first? 
For it was Rosie. 

Did she see him ? He made a step 
toward her; he said “Rosie,” but his voice 
was thick, so perhaps she did not hear, but 
he fancied that the color came into her 
cheeks and then suddenly left them, and she 
kept her eyes studiously turned away on the 
sunny river or on the buttons of her long 
gray gloves during the minute Miss Sinclair 
stood talking to the man who had met them 
— “gentleman” Joe would have described 
him — before they passed over the gangway 
on to the boat. 


Bank Holiday . 


173 


There was a band on the boat, which 
struck up a lively waltz as the boat got 
under way. Joe hated that tune forever 
after. As Rosie’s ill-luck would have it, 
Miss Sinclair and her friends had chosen the 
side of the boat nearest Joe, and at the mo- 
ment that they passed close in front of him 
one of them pointed out to Rosie something 
just behind Joe, so that she was forced to 
look that way, and she had to answer too 
and laugh, knowing that words and laugh 
were perfectly audible to that silent figure 
leaning on the railings. 

Ruth could not make out, nor, I think, 
did Joe himself rightly know, what had 
become of him after that, nor how he made 
his way back to Milling, and into the wood 
where he reckoned on being left to himself ; 
but he had had nothing to eat all day, and 
was quite exhausted with hunger and fatigue 
and agitation. 


174 


Rose and Lavender . 


Ruth, no doubt, had sometimes an awk- 
ward way of expressing herself, but her 
heart was so full of pity and sympathy that 
I wonder the beauty of the feeling did not 
sound in the clumsy, matter-of-fact words 
which seemed to irritate J oe so much. One 
would have thought that with that false lit- 
tle laugh of Rosie’s echoing in his memory 
coupled with that hateful waltz, Joe would 
have recognized with pleasure the true, hon- 
est ring in Ruth’s voice, rough and unmusi- 
cal though it was. But the whole world was 
out of tune to Joe just then. 


Retribution. 


175 


CHAPTER XII. 

RETRIBUTION. 

But pleasures are like poppies spread ; 

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 

Or, like the snow-fall in the river, 

A moment white, then melts forever. 

Burns. 

“I don’t think that little girl at Miss 
Featherly’s is at all improved,” Mrs. Trevor 
said to her daughter, one day six months 
after the events recorded in the last chapter. 
“ She took my fancy very much at first, she 
is such a pretty little thing, and I thought 
she was so simple and innocent. But I am 
afraid she is not quite as simple as she looks, 
and more than once I have found her out in 
a fib.” 

“And she dresses so much,” replied Miss 
Trevor. “I met her on Sunday as I came 


176 


Rose and Lavender . 


out of St. John’s, and really, with her 
velveteen dress and furs, she was quite 
conspicuous. ” 

“ She is a silly, empty-headed little 
thing. She pretended to be fond of reading, 
and I lent her one or two books which I 
thought would interest her, and when she 
brought them back she declared she had 
liked them very much, and begged for some 
more; but I guessed she had not been so 
delighted with them as she tried to make 
out, so I put a question or two which soon 
brought out that she had not gone much 
beyond the covers. Poor little thing ! I am 
sorry she thought it worth while to tell un- 
truths about it.” 

Mrs. Trevor’s notice of Rosie had been 
good for the girl as far as her health and 
worldly prospects were concerned. As I 
have said before, Mrs. Trevor was a new 
customer and likely to be a good one; so 


Retribution . 


177 


Miss Featherly was anxious to oblige her, 
and whenever a parcel or message had to be 
taken to South Hill, Rosie was made the 
bearer of it, and by this means she got more 
air and exercise than fell to the lot of the 
other girls; and this, as .Mrs. Trevor had 
said, soon brought back the color into her 
cheeks and light into her eyes, and saved 
her from that summary despatch to her 
home which would assuredly have followed 
another of those fainting fits and their ac- 
companying pale cheeks and heavy eyes. 

Other ladies, too, noticed the girl’s pretty 
looks, and Miss Featherly found it answered 
to bring her forward and have her a good 
deal in the showroom to try on cloaks and 
mantles, which looked elegant and stylish on 
her pretty figure, and beguiled stout and 
clumsily made ladies into the fond delusion 
that the cloak or mantle would have the 

same effect on them. It was the same, too, 
12 


178 


Rose and Lavender . 


with the bonnets, which looked very attrac- 
tive perched on Rosie’s soft curly hair over 
her sweet little face, but which did not look 
quite the same over the scanty locks and 
sallow face of the customer. 

Miss Featherly’.s favor did not make Rosie 
more popular in the workroom, and as, after 
Bank Holiday, she was no longer patronized 
by Miss Sinclair, she had not her protection 
against the pecks which the other girls lost 
no opportunity of giving. 

They had one and all envied her the dis- 
tinction of going with Miss Sinclair on Bank 
Holiday; it had made all their plans for 
spending the day seem mean and insignifi- 
cant, and Rosie had not spared their feel- 
ings, but had flaunted the programme of the 
day and her new dress and her pretty hat 
and her gloves and her sunshade before them 
till they were all as jealous as they could be, 
and Ellen Strange actually cried with spite. 


Retribution 


179 


But after all, that victorious day was dearly 
bought. First of all, it cost her her lover; 
and a lover, dear reader, is a very precious 
possession. You may smile and toss your 
head, but it is so ; I mean a real lover such 
as Rachel had in Jacob who served seven 
years for her, ‘‘and they seemed unto him 
but a few days, for the love he had to her. ” 
Do you think a day’s pleasure or a hundred 
days would have made up to Rachel for the 
loss of Jacob ? And Joe, though he was only 
a country cobbler, as Miss Featherly’s young 
ladies disdainfully called him, loved Rosie 
very truly, and she knew it, and down in 
the bottom of that silly little heart of hers 
she felt that she had paid a heavy price 
when the steam-launch left the landing- 
stage, and she looked up into Joe’s white, 
set face and laughed that hollow little 
laugh. 

And next, that day cost Rosie her friend, 


180 


Rose and Lavender . 


— if Miss Sinclair could ever have been 
called a friend, as her liking for Rosie was 
mainly founded on her dislike to Ellen 
Strange, which was a poor foundation to 
build friendship on, and the frail structure 
was knocked all to pieces by the first glance 
of admiration which Mr. Smythe, the smil- 
ing, dandified young man who met them at 
the boat, gave her. But perhaps the reader 
may remember that in an earlier chapter 
mention was made of a certain Rob Dixon 
down at Bristol, the thought of whom came 
back to Miss Sinclair’s mind when she 
dreamed of happiness and holiday time ; and 
if she loved Rob Dixon, why need she have 
minded if Mr. Smythe looked with admira- 
tion at little Rose Bailey ? 

But the girl who loved Rob Dixon and 
broke a sixpence with him and promised 
never to forget him, was Jessie Sinclair, the 
girl her little crippled sister was so fond of, 


Retribution. 


181 


who was the light and comfort of the shabby 
old home ; while the one whom Mr. Smythe 
admired, and whose condescending notice of 
Rosie turned to bitter hostility at the first 
suspicion of being cut out by her, was Miss 
Sinclair, Miss Featherly’s first skirt-hand, 
who would soon take the place of forewoman 
or move on to some more fashionable dress- 
maker; and they were two very different 
people. There are so many people in the 
world who have this double nature, they are 
happiest who can keep simplest. 

But Miss Featherly’s first skirt-hand man- 
aged to make it very unpleasant to Rose 
Bailey, so that the day which had cost Rosie 
so much was certainly a -very poor bargain ; 
and when it was over and she crept into 
bed, I do not think she was very much hap- 
pier than poor Joe, and had the additional 
pang of feeling that it was all her own fault. 

Miss Sinclair snubbed and set her down 


182 


Rose and Lavender. 


all day, making her feel awkward and out of 
place. Mr. Smythe’s politeness could not 
make up for Miss Sinclair’s disagreeableness 
of which it was the cause ; and as he lost no 
opportunity of refreshing himself all day, his 
politeness became tiresome, not to say fool- 
ish, by the evening, and he made Rosie 
unpleasantly conspicuous at the dance in the 
evening by tripping up and pulling her down 
with him. Her pretty, new dress was torn, 
and Miss Sinclair made her feel that it was 
her fault, and that she had made herself the 
laughing-stock of the whole party. The hat, 
Joe’s present (just retribution), pressed pain- 
fully on her forehead and made it ache, and 
her shoes — not, you may be sure, those Joe 
had made — were too tight, and her feet 
throbbed and tingled with the pain of 
them. 

And then she had to keep it all to herself, 
and keep up a pretence that she had thor- 


Retribution . 


183 


oughly enjoyed herself and had had a de- 
lightful day, and she could not sit down and 
have a good cry; for not even in her bed- 
room had she a moment’s privacy, even to 
hide her head in the bed-clothes and sob out 
a little of the soreness of her heart, without 
some one asking what was the matter, or 
tittering at the idea of Miss Bailey crying. 

In her heart she tried to comfort herself 
with the hope that she could after all make 
it right with Joe even now. A look or a 
smile from her had always hitherto been 
enough to bring him round ; she could twist 
him round her little finger. But the re- 
membrance of his face as the steam-launch 
passed him was not reassuring, and she 
waited with restless impatience for Sunday 
to come, when she was quite sure Joe would 
make his appearance if it were only to 
reproach her. 

There would certainly be a scene ; she felt 


184 


Rose and Lavender. 


he had a right to be angry, and 3he was pre- 
pared to be very penitent and do her utmost 
to make it up to him. She could tell him 
what she would not breathe to any one else, 
that she had not enjoyed the day one bit, 
and that she never wanted to see Mr. Smythe 
again, and that she would rather a hundred 
times have gone with Joe to Hastings, or 
even spent the day in the meadows at 
Milling. She could have said all this truth- 
fully without any pretending, and surely 
this would go a long way to soothe Joe’s 
wounded feelings. 

But when Sunday came, Joe was not at 
the corner of Bridge Street, where she had 
sometimes kept him waiting so remorse- 
lessly, confident that his patience was quite 
inexhaustible as far as she was concerned. 
She had hurried a little so as to be in good 
time, and had put on those shoes that he had 
made for her, though it necessitated her 


Retribution. 


185 


stealing out of the house when no one was 
looking, lest they should see and make fun 
of her. 

When she did not see the waiting figure at 
the corner, she thought she was too early 
and took a few turns; but still he did not 
come, and at last, feeling a little crestfallen 
and lonely, she went off to see some friends 
of her mother’s. How long the afternoon 
was ! It seemed ages before the church bells 
began and it was time to go to service, and 
on her way to church, and after she had 
taken her seat, she could not keep herself 
from watching eagerly, hoping that Joe 
might even now have relented and come to 
meet her. 

It was very unkind of him, and it was no 
use telling herself that she did not care, that 
there were plenty of other young men quite 
as nice as Joe, and that it was his loss; do 
what she would, she could not prevent a tear 


186 


Rose and Lavender. 


running down on to her prayer-book, though 
she angrily whisked it away the next 
moment. 

Outside the church she met Mr. Smythe; 
and though she could have truthfully told 
J oe that afternoon that she never wished to 
see Mr. Smythe again, she met him now 
very pleasantly, feeling as if she were pun- 
ishing Joe in some indirect way by talking 
and laughing with another man. “At any 
rate,” she told her silly little self, “I am 
paying out that cross Miss Sinclair, and the 
girls shall see that I ’m not left in the lurch, 
though J oe Martin does choose to sulk and 
keep away.” And she laughed a gay little 
laugh, and chattered away a little bit louder 
as she passed a group of Miss Featherly’s 
young ladies standing at the end of Bridge 
Street. 

But when Sunday after Sunday went by, 
and Joe did not come nor write, and she went 


Retribution . 


187 


several times to South Hill on market-days 
and had to face the perils of the droves of 
cattle unprotected, and the hat Joe had 
given her had had a shower of rain on it 
and had lost its first beauty, the wound in 
Rosie’s heart or in her vanity or self-love 
began to heal over, and she left off thinking 
about Joe and watching for and expecting 
him. 

But Rosie was not quite the same girl 
afterward. She plucked up a good deal 
more spirit, and would not submit to being 
teased as she did before ; she held her own 
and asserted her rights even against Miss 
Sinclair, and, more to displease her than 
because his society pleased herself, Rosie 
had a good deal to do with Mr. Smythe ; and 
as he and his friends were smart, and 
thought a great deal of dress and appear- 
ance, she had to keep up with them, and 
also to try to put it out of Miss Sinclair’s 


188 


Rose and Lavender. 


power to make sneering remarks about her 
dress. 

It would, however, have required some- 
thing more than unlimited means to stop 
Miss Sinclair’s sneers; for, after all, if you 
cannot make fun of a person’s poverty, you 
can always do so of her taste, even if she be 
a millionaire with maids and French milli- 
ners at her beck and call. 

Mr. Smythe was not like Joe either, who 
would have tried his utmost to get the moon 
for Rosie if she had expressed a wish for it. 
Mr. Smythe found quite enough to spend his 
money on in his own dress and amusements ; 
and if he noticed that Rosie had shabby 
gloves or she expressed ardent admiration for 
a certain muff, it never occurred to his mind 
to give what she wanted, but he took it as 
only proper respect to himself that she should 
be properly turned out when he did her the 
honor to walk with her. 


Retribution. 


189 


And, as we have seen by Mrs. Trevor’s 
remarks at the beginning of this chapter, 
Rosie succeeded in dressing conspicuously 
well, though how she did it was a puzzle to 
a good many people. 


190 


Rose and Lavender. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

WINTER. 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ? 

. . . Therein the patient 

Must minister to himself. 

Shakspeare. 

That was a very severe winter that fol- 
lowed The frost began unusually early and 
suddenly. There was a snap of it in Octo- 
ber, cutting short in a night the lingering 
beauties of summer. The day before, Ruth 
had picked quite a posy to take in to Joe. 
She did not a bit know how to arrange it, 
but she put it together anyhow; and some- 
times flowers look better so than when they 
are more elaborately treated. But the next 
day there was not a flower to be found ; they 
were all black and limp and dragging on the 


Winter. 


191 


ground and ill-smelling, flower and foliage 
alike, and all she could find to take in was a 
bit of the blue-green leaves of the old lav- 
ender bush. 

The pink roses on the porch, some of 
which had still been sweet and pretty the 
day before, were turned into brown, rotten- 
looking knobs with no scent or beauty about 
them. 

After this preliminary skirmish King 
Frost reserved his forces for a bit; but No- 
vember was hardly half over when winter 
began in real earnest and snow fell heavily, 
followed by frost after frost going on for 
weeks. It was not bright, exhilarating 
frost either, but there were thick fogs mak- 
ing the short days shorter and the nights 
pitch-dark. There was much distress among 
the poor, great numbers of men were out of 
work, and there were sad stories of destitu- 
tion and starvation; but these were mostly 


192 


Rose and Lavender. 


in London and the big towns. In Milling, 
though the pinch was felt by a good many, 
it was not so bad as in many places, and at 
the house by the pond, if it had not been for 
Joe’s illness, the hard winter would not have 
made any difference, for people must have 
their clothes washed whatever the weather 
may be. It made the work a good deal 
harder, to be sure, for the pump got frozen, 
and they had to fetch all the water from the 
next house, and on those very cold mornings 
the water froze as Ruth carried the pail. 
The clothes froze on the line, too, and Mrs. 
Martin’s hands got so chapped and cracked 
and sore that Ruth did all she could to 
save them; and this was difficult, as Mrs. 
Martin’s temper was affected, and nothing 
exasperated her so much as to find out Ruth 
trying to do more than her fair share of 
the work. 

Mrs. Tilbury, too, was ailing; the fog 


Winter. 


193 


made her breathing bad, and brought on her 
cough, — a noisy sort of cough which Mrs. 
Martin sometimes thought she might con- 
trol, especially when Joe had just dropped 
off to sleep or had one of his bad headaches. 

Joe had been ill all the autumn. Mrs. 
Martin dated his illness back to Bank 
Holiday. 

“ I never did hold with them holidays as 
does more harm than good to my thinking. 
It would n’t be so bad if folks would take it 
reasonable like, and go for a nice walk and 
see their friends; but I don’t see what the 
pleasure nor profit neither can be of racing 
half over England in one of them nasty, 
crowded excursion trains, with most-like a 
lot of tipsiness and bad language and all the 
rest of it, and go all day on an empty stom- 
ach and don’t get no proper food, but eat 
just any rubbish they can get hold of, and 

then they ’re surprised if they feels ill after 
13 


194 


Rose and Lavender . 


it. Why, look at Joe! When he come in 
that evening, he looked pretty well like 
death itself, and he could n’t tell us nothing 
of what he ’d been doing, or if he was 
pleased with the sea, nor nothing. My no- 
tion about it is, ” Mrs. Martin would say, if 
she was talking to any one with whom she 
was sufficiently confidential, — “my notion 
about it is that he may have had a fall out 
with Rosie Bailey, for he never as much as 
named her, nor has n’t from that day to this, 
nor she ’ve never wrote nor come over to 
know how he is, and I can’t say as I ever 
liked her much or thought her fit to black 
Joe’s shoes neither.” 

Joe kept about for a few days after Bank 
Holiday; and Ruth, with a tact that her best 
friends would not have given her credit for, 
managed to stave off his mother’s curiosity, 
sometimes abruptly changing the subject, 
sometimes answering ' instead of Joe, till 


Winter. 


195 


Mrs. Martin got quite vexed at what she 
considered Ruth’s bad manners, and gave 
her quite a sharp rating on the subject, dur- 
ing which rating Joe took himself off, which 
was just what Ruth wanted. 

But when Sunday came, that day when 
Rosie looked out for him in vain at the 
street corner, Joe broke down and took to 
his bed. Ruth had a pitying little suspi- 
cion that he stopped in bed to prevent him- 
self from going into Medington, to which he 
seemed drawn in spite of himself. For 
some time she set down his inability to 
work and his want of appetite and his fever- 
ish restlessness to his mental sufferings and 
his trouble of mind, and tried to screen him 
from remark, and treated the matter cheer- 
fully to his mother and hers, hoping he would 
get over it in time and pluck up his spirit 
again. 

“But there,” as Mrs. Martin said later, 


196 


Rose and Lavender. 


“ Ruth don’t know what illness is herself, so 
she ain’t no feeling with those as do; and if 
we ’d a-listened to her, Joe might a-been in 
his coffin by now, with indigestion of the 
lungs going on all the time, and his temper- 
ament, as the doctor takes away in that little 
glass bottle as he keeps in his pocket, that 
high as it could n’t get no higher. Why, 
Ruth was quite set against calling Dr. Bates 
in, and you might a- thought Joe was sham- 
ming, to hear the way she went on. But she 
changed her tone pretty quick when she see 
how grave he looked when he ’d tried Joe’s 
chest with that wooden thing as I can’t 
never mind the name of ; and I will say that 
for Ruth, as she ’s a capital girl when 
there ’s anything wrong, and always ready 
with them poultices as we kep on day and 
night for ever so long, and studying all 
Joe’s whimsies, and, though he ’s my own 
son, I will say as he ’s that contrairy when 


Winter. 


197 


he ’s ailing as needs a deal of patience to put 
up with. ” 

Perhaps Joe had taken cold, lying in the 
damp undergrowth of the wood by the river 
after the heat and excitement of his long 
walk, and also no doubt his illness was 
largely due to his trouble of mind, for men- 
tal agitation makes the body less able to 
resist the attack of disease. 

He had always been delicate about the 
chest, and Mrs. Martin took a strange, 
mournful pride in relating how many mem- 
bers of her own and her husband’s families 
had died of what she called “ gallopading ” 
consumption. There was no doubt Joe was 
very ill, and when the severe weather came 
on in November he had a serious relapse, 
and the two women used to torture them- 
selves in that strange way people do, by no- 
ticing and imagining tokens and signs of 
death. 


198 


Bose and Lavender. 


They thought Ruth downright unfeeling 
because she would not join in these morbid 
fancies. She could not or would not hear 
the owl which, according to Mrs. Tilbury, 
screeched round the house all one night; she 
proved that the kitchen clock stopped one 
evening merely because it had run down; 
while the coal that popped out of the fire 
right on to J oe’s empty chair, and which the 
two women recognized, before they had 
looked at it, as a coffin, Ruth maintained 
was undoubtedly a money-bag, and blistered 
her finger and thumb in displaying this 
omen of coming riches; and the strange 
ticking at the head of Joe’s bed, which Mrs. 
Martin knew to be the death-watch, Ruth 
stopped at once by moving Joe’s little alarum 
clock, which she had put against the wall in 
the next room. 

But as Christmas came on, Joe seemed to 
be slowly making progress toward recovery, 


Winter. 


199 


— not quite satisfactorily, Dr. Bates said; 
almost imperceptibly to the eyes of the three 
anxious women, who could only tell he was 
better by looking back and remembering that 
he was certainly weaker a few days or a fort- 
night ago, and could not do this or that 
then. He was not half as nearly well as 
Ruth pretended to consider him, both to his 
own and his mother’s irritation, not realiz- 
ing that she was trying to stifle her own 
fears and anxieties by those cheerful prophe- 
cies that Joe would soon be at work again, 
or eating his rasher with the best of them, 
or taking his part in the Christmas carols as 
well as ever. 

Joe’s birthday came the week before 
Christmas, and, as I have said before, did 
not generally get any special observance, 
being merged in the Christmas festivities. 
It fell on a Wednesday this year; and on 
Tuesday evening, as Ruth sat by Joe’s side, 


200 


Rose and Lavender . 


Mrs. Martin came creaking up those noisy 
wooden stairs to say that Farmer Cartright 
had sent round to ask if any of them wanted 
to go into Medington, as he should be driv- 
ing in alone next day to market. 

It was a bitterly cold night. The farm- 
laborer who brought the message had frozen 
fog on his hair and beard, and the fog 
had got into his eyes and throat, and he 
stood blinking and choking at the door, and 
stamping the snow off his boots, for in the 
dark he had missed the path where the snow 
was trodden down and frozen hard, and had 
stepped into the deep snow by the side. 

Mrs. Martin seemed to bring a whiff of 
fog up with her into J oe’s comfortable room, 
where the fire burned warm but dull, as a 
fire does which has not been let out night or 
day for a long time, and where every suspi- 
cion of a draught was kept out by curtains 
or sandbags or pasted strips of paper. 


Winter . 


201 


“ Miller says as there ’ll be more snow 
before morning if be knows anything about 
it, which I dare say be don’t, as folks is 
mostly mighty wise over the weather and 
knows precious little about it. But anyhow 
it ’s a night fit to freeze your bones, and to- 
morrow ain’t likely to be much better, and 
we don’t want nothing in Medington ; so I ’ll 
just say we won’t trouble to go, thank him 
all the same. But I thought I ’d best let 
you know as he ’d sent, as I heard you say 
there was something you wanted fetched, 
and I’ll be bound the farmer ’d do it.” 

Joe gave an irritable shiver. “That 
door’s open downstairs,” he said. “It’s 
enough to blow the bed-clothes off, the 
draught as comes up the stairs.” 

“That it ain’t,” Mrs. Martin protested, 
“and I shut the door and drawed the cur- 
tain a-purpose as you should n’t feel it, but 
there ’s no pleasing some folks. — There, 


202 


Rose and Lavender. 


■ i 


Ruth, go on with your reading, and if we 
mind what it was we wanted fetched we can 
just send up to the farm afore he starts. ” 
Ruth was reading to Joe; she was a very 
poor reader, and when he was well he made 
fun of her sing-song, school-girl tone of 
voice, and her bungling over the long 
words, and her slowness in seeing the sense 
of a passage. But now, as his mother said, 
“ out of pure contrariness, ” Ruth was to read 
to him, though his mother rather prided her- 
self on her reading aloud and was pleased 
to display her accomplishment. Perhaps it 
was just this that made Joe prefer Ruth’s 
reading, bad as it was; there was no wish 
for display, she would begin or leave off any- 
where or when Joe liked, read a bit over 
again, or skip a few pages, and she would go 
steadily on, though Joe might doze off or 
pay no attention. So she kept on now, 
though there was a look in Joe’s face that 


Winter. 


203 


told his thoughts were wandering far away, 
and also she stumbled over two long words 
which she did not know how to pronounce, 
without being corrected, which was a sure 
sign that he was not listening. Her 
thoughts began to wander too, which was 
not usual when she was reading aloud, as it 
was an exercise which required closest atten- 
tion ; indeed, J oe used to say she read with 
her whole body. 

It was Mrs. Martin’s interruptions that 
distracted her thoughts and sent them back 
to that midsummer market-day when she 
and Joe went into Medington together and 
he got his new coat; and I fancy that Joe’s 
thoughts had gone in the same direction, for 
in the very middle of a sentence that Ruth 
was reading, he broke in, without any appar- 
ent connection of ideas, — 

“You’ve not heard anything of Rose 
Bailey, I suppose, have you ? ” 


204 


Rose and Lavender. 


“No,” she answered. “I’ve not been in 
the way of hearing of her just lately. 
We ’ve been nowheres hardly since you ’ve 
been laid up.” 

He gave a little sigh and turned his head 
wearily on the pillow. How wan he looked, 
with such great, hollow eyes with an eager, 
hungry look in them, and the hand that lay 
outside the bed-clothes was so wasted and 
worn, with hardly a sign remaining of the 
work whose very disfigurement is such an 
honor and ornament to a working-man’s 
hand. 

“ Go on reading, ” he said ; and she tried 
to do so, but stumbled and bungled, and at 
last broke down altogether. 

“It’s your birthday to-morrow, Joe,” she 
said with as little connection with what she 
had been reading as Joe’s remark about 
Rose Bailey had been. 

“ Oh, there ! ” he answered, “ don’t say 


Winter. 


205 


nothing about it. Let ’em forget it if they 
will. I ’ve had about enough of birthdays, 
I ’m thinking.” 

“I ain’t got nothing to give you, Joe,” 
she said wistfully, “not even a bunch of 
flowers. Why, some years the chrysanthe- 
mums lasts on till now, or there ’ll be a 
primrose or two under the hedge ; but 
there ’s just nothing at all in the garden 
now. ” 

“You give me your present months ago,” 
Joe said, with a shake in his voice that 
brought the tears into Ruth’s eyes. “ I ain’t 
forgot it, no, nor ever shall, though I don’t 
say nothing. Where are you off to, Ruth ? ” 

For Ruth had got up suddenly and laid 
the book down. “ I ’ll be back in a minute 
or two,” she said; “I’ll send Mother up a 
bit to bide with you.” 

“ Where are you off to ? ” Mrs. Martin 
echoed Joe’s words as Ruth passed through 


206 


Rose and Lavender . 


the kitchen, with her thick shawl over her 
head, and opened the door. u There ain’t 
nothing we want from Medington. I sent 
for the linseed by Jinks. Going into Med- 
ington yourself ? Bless the girl ! and such 
weather as ’tis, and all the ironing, and 
Joe that fractious as a baby teething ain’t 
nothing to him.” 

But Ruth, running along the iron-bound 
road up to the farm through the fog, kept 
saying to herself, “I ’ll get Joe the birthday 
present he ’ll like better than anything, and 
that ’s a word from Rosie. ” 


Christmas Market. 


207 


CHAPTER XIV. 

CHRISTMAS MARKET. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords 
with might ; 

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music 
out of sight. 

Tennyson. 

“I hope you ’re well wrapped up,” Farmer 
Cartright said as he helped Ruth into his 
cart next morning. “I ’d half a mind not to 
go myself, and if it had n’t ’a’ been Christ- 
mas market, I ’d have bid at home ; and the 
missus wanted me to send Bill. But there ! 
if one don’t do things one’s self, there ’s 
always some muddle made ; and I ’ve been 
into Christmas market every year man and 
boy this fifty year, and I ain’t such an old 
fellow yet as I need take to my arm-chair 
and warm my toes over the fire every time 


208 


Rose and Lavender. 


there ’s a bit of frost. Wh}^ I ’m a better 
man yet than half the youngsters with their 
Mackintosh coats and silk umbrellas if 
there ’s a shower of rain, as if they was 
made of sugar and would melt. Why, 
when I was a young chap, we should 
’a’ laughed at one as was feared of a drop of 
rain or a fall of snow ; but it ’s different 
for a girl, and if you ain’t obliged to 
go I would n’t if I was you, for it looks 
uncommon like a snowfall before we get 
home again.” 

It was eight o’clock, but it was hardly to 
be called light yet, and you could scarcely 
believe that the dim, uncertain yellowish 
light could come from the sun, that great 
cheerful, generous sun that poured his rays 
so lavishly on the world at midsummer. A 
cold biting wind from the northeast had dis- 
persed the fog, but only to show heavy dun- 
colored clouds, hanging low and threatening, 


Christmas Market. 


209 


and having that red tinge in them that so 
often betokens snow. 

It was not an inviting day for a long 
drive ; but Ruth was not to be daunted, and 
she climbed up to the farmer’s side and 
wrapped her shawl closely round her, and 
thought of her birthday present for J oe, and 
it was not half as cold as you might have 
expected. 

The old mare jogged along very steadily, 
and, to the farmer’s pride, did not make a 
single slip on the hard-frozen roads, though 
the hill down into Medington was long and 
in some parts steep, and they passed a horse 
which had come down and cut its knees 
badly. This horse had overtaken them on 
the road, being driven in a smart dog-cart, 
and going at a quick pace and with a showy 
action which made the farmer’s mare look 
slow and clumsy. 

Farmer Cartright made this the text for 
14 


210 


Rose and Lavender . 


a long discourse on horses, and on the 
smart, showy nags some of the neighboring 
farmers drove, that cost a mint of money 
and had no wear and tear in them for sensi- 
ble work. 

“ And it ’s just the same about choosing 
their wives. They bring home smart young 
misses as can’t put their hands to anything 
useful, and couldn’t make up the butter to 
save their lives, or know what a pig was if 
they saw one, and are only good at doing 
crochy-work or parly-voo or play the piano. 
Nice farmers’ wives they make, I wager. I 
didn’t choose my missus that way. I knew 
better than that. I always tell her as ’t was 
her elbows as finished me off, when I 
saw her in the dairy at her father’s 
with her sleeves turned up, making up 
the butter as if she knew what she was 
about. ” 

It did not seem to occur to his mind, nor 


• Christmas Market. 


211 


did it to Ruth’s either, that he had not 
brought up his daughters on this principle ; 
for there were not two smarter young ladies, 
or less given to domestic usefulness, than the 
Miss Cartrights. 

A few flakes of snow were falling when 
they got into Medington; but the weather 
did not seem to have prevented the farmers’ 
coming to. the Christmas market, and there 
was a goodly array of traps in the yard of 
the “ Marquis of Granby ” as they drove in 
under the archway. 44 1 ’ll try and start for 
home at three,” the farmer said, “but I’ve 
a deal of business to see to, so I may n’t be 
as punctual as 1 ’d like ; but you ’d best be 
ready by then, for there ain’t too much day- 
light of an afternoon, and the weather looks 
ugly. And I say,” he called after her, “if 
you ’re likely to be anywhere near the sta- 
tion, will you get the Christmas number of 
the 4 Graphic ’ for my girls ? They want it 


212 


Bose and Lavender. 


particular, and I ’m bound to forget it with 
them beasts on my mind.’’ 

In after times Ruth used to bless that 
Christmas number, and the colored picture 
of a child playing with a spaniel was framed 
and hung up in Joe’s workshop; but at the 
time when the farmer asked her to get it, 
she thought it was a little bit troublesome, 
as Bridge Street was quite on the other side 
of the town to the station, and she did not 
know Medington well enough to find her way 
about very readily. 

But she had plenty of time, and she made 
her way first to Bridge Street and rang the 
bell at Miss Featherly’s. 

“ Could I speak to Rose Bailey for a min- 
ute ? ” she asked the servant who came to 
the door. 

Miss Feather ly had of late set up a page- 
boy, bristling with buttons (and, the young 
ladies said, with impudence). He had, 


Christmas Market . 


213 


according to Miss Featherly, a very stylish 
manner of ushering the lady customers into 
the showroom and placing chairs for them, 
and escorting them to their carriages when 
they left; but these stylish manners were 
reserved for carriage customers, and he had 
not even common politeness for ordinary 
mortals, and a great deal less for his fellow- 
servants and the work-girls. 

Ruth was not of course imposing enough 
to be shown any civility, so he proceeded to 
shut the door in her face. 

“No, you can’t,” was all the answer he 
vouchsafed. But he opened the door again 
for a moment to add, “And next time you 
come, 1 ’ll trouble you to go to the kitching 
door, as I ain’t engaged to open the door to 
the likes of you.” 

Not to be discouraged or even upset by the 
boy’s rudeness, Ruth followed a butcher’s 
boy who was going to the back of the house, 


214 


Rose and Lavender. 


and repeated her request to a dirty -looking 
cook standing there. 

“Miss Bailey? No, visitors ain’t allowed 
in the morning. You’d best call round 
again in the evening if you wants to see 
her ; and even then there ’s no knowing, as 
they ’re up to their eyes in work for the 
Christmas ball.” 

“1 wanted particular to see her just for a 
minute,” Ruth said, “and I’m in from the 
country, so I couldn't wait till the evening. 

1 wouldn’t keep her half a minute to hinder 
her work.” 

But the cook shook her head. “If you 
like to leave a message, I would n’t mind 
seeing as she gets it. Not that it ’s my 
place, as has plenty to do without running 
errands for them girls.” 

“ Could n’t you just tell her as Ruth 
Tilbury wants to speak to her for a 
minute ? ” 


Christmas Market. 


215 


“ Why, bless the girl 1 it ’s as much as my 
place is worth to go into the showroom of a* 
morning. Not that my place is worth much 
neither, as Injun slaves ain’t nothing to it, 
and never done from morning to night. 
And the missus ain’t in the best of tempers 
to-day neither, and it ’s something along of 
Miss Bailey too, though I could n’t rightly 
hear what it was. You see I were sweeping 
up in the passage up against Miss Featherly’s 
door when she sent for Miss Bailey to speak 
to her. Not that I ’m one of those as lowers 
themselves to listening at keyholes, — I’d 
scorn the action, — but the dust do get into 
the corners of the passage and takes a deal 
of trouble to get it out, and I likes to do my 
work thorough, as is what 1 ’ve been brought 
up to. So I could n’t help hearing as there 
was a row going on, and the missus’s voice 
when she ’s in a rage ain’t the sort as she 
uses to the customers, — rather not. As far 


216 


Rose and Lavender . 


as I could hear, ’t was about some bill as the 
missus said had been paid to Miss Bailey, 
and she ’d never give the money to the mis- 
sus, and Miss Bailey were crying and saying 
she never had the money, were it ever so. 
And now I comes to think of it, you might 
get a chance of seeing Miss Bailey, as I 
heard the missus say, says she, 4 There, 
you ’d best go up when you ’ve done the 
showroom, and set it right with Mrs. 
Trevor;’ and Miss Bailey come out with a 
face as white as a sheet, and nearly fell over 
me, coming out sudden-like before I ’d time 
to get out of the way.” 

“ Where is she now ? ” 

“Oh, in the showroom, and she won’t be 
done there for another hour; so, if you’re 
here, you ’re bound to see her about eleven. 
And it ’s up to South Hill she ’d be going, 
where Mrs. Trevor lives, on the London road 
about two mile out. And lookye here,” the 


Christmas Market . 


217 


cook added, who, in spite of her account of 
the hardness of the place and the unceasing 
character of the work, seemed to have un- 
limited time for gossip, — “ lookye here, don’t 
let on as 1 ’ve told you anything. I ’d not 
have said a word, but seeing as you was her 
friend and sensible like, I thought as it 
would n’t do no harm just to drop you a 
hint.” 

But as Ruth turned away, she heard the 
cook begin a confidential talk with the 
butcher’s boy, and had a strong suspicion 
that the row between the missus and Rosie 
was being told to him. 

She thought she could fill up the hour 
before Rosie was likely to come out, by go- 
ing to the station to fetch the paper for the 
farmer. The snow was falling heavily by 
this time, but Ruth made her way steadily 
through it, stopping now and then to shake 
it off the green gingham umbrella, that had 


218 


Rose and Lavender . 


sheltered her and Joe many a time on wet 
days on their way to school, and had seen 
more service than twenty of the smart, new- 
fashioned silk ones were capable of. 

She had got the paper and was leaving the 
station when, just as she went out of the 
station door, some one entering hastily, 
half blinded by the beating snow, ran up 
against her so violently that the incomer 
would have fallen if Ruth had not quickly 
caught hold of her and held her up. 

The girl had no umbrella, and there was 
snow on her velvet jacket and on her fair 
hair, and on the big knitted cloud that was 
muffled round her neck, so that Ruth could 
not see her face, and did not recognize who 
it was, till an exclamation of her name, 
“ Ruth ! Ruth Tilbury ! ” in accents of sur- 
prise and terror told that it was some one 
who knew her. 


Rosie's Story. 


219 


CHAPTER XV. 

ROSIE’S STORY. 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, 

When first we practise to deceive ! 

Scott. 

It was Rose Bailey, but it was no wonder 
that Ruth did not easily recognize the light- 
hearted, gay little butterfly of last summer. 
What could be seen of her face was white 
and haggard, and her eyes were strained wide 
open, with the look of a hunted creature 
escaping from close pursuit. She broke 
away from Ruth’s detaining hand, and hur- 
ried on to the booking-office, and Ruth heard 
.her ask a porter if the 10.15 train for London 
had gone. 

“ Gone ? Bless your heart ! yes, this ten 
minutes. When ’s there another ? Not for 
an hour and a half pretty near, 11.45.” 


220 


Rose and Lavender . 


Rosie gave a gesture almost of despair, 
and sank down on a bench, and then, as if 
remembering herself, gave a quick, furtive 
look round, and went into the waiting-room, 
where Ruth found her the next minute in 
the darkest corner away from the fire, hold • 
ing up a newspaper before her face. It was 
impossible for her to be reading ; the falling 
snow outside made it very dark, and only 
one burner of gas had been lighted. More- 
over the paper she held was upside down, 
and her hands trembled so with cold or some 
other cause that the letters must have danced 
before her eyes. 

She started when Ruth came across the 
room toward her, but still kept the paper 
before her face. But Ruth was not to be 
deterred by this evident wish to avoid her. 

“Rosie,” she said, “Rose Bailey, I came 
into Medington a-purpose to see you.” 

There was no escape ; Rosie put down the 


Rosie's Story. 


221 


paper and forced a smile into her quivering, 
white face. 

“ Why, to be sure ! it ’s Ruth Tilbury. I 
did n’t recognize you for a minute. How do 
you do ? Are you all well at home ? What 
lovely weather ! — I mean how cold it is ! 
I’m afraid I can’t stop and have a chat; 
I ’m in a hurry. I ’ve got to catch a train. 
Good-by. Give my love to Aunt.” 

But Ruth would not let her go like this. 
She took hold of her arm and pulled her 
back on to the seat by her side ; and, indeed, 
Rosie was shaking so, that I doubt if she 
could have crossed the room alone even to 
avoid Ruth’s kind, sensible eyes, which 
seemed to torture her by their straightfor- 
ward, honest look. 

“What is it, Rosie?” she said; “what’s 
the matter ? ” 

“ There ’s nothing the matter, ” the girl 
answered pettishly, drawing her arm from 


222 


Rose and Lavender, 


Ruth’s grasp, and yet contradicting her 
words by covering her face with her hands 
and rocking backward and forward. “Why 
should there be anything the matter ? Can’t 
you leave me alone and not tease me ? I’m 
only cold, that ’s all. Every one ’s cold this 
weather. And it ’s no business of yours 
what I ’m doing here ; but if you must 
know, I ’ve got a holiday. Why, it ’s nearly 
Christmas time, and it ’s nothing strange to 
have a holiday at Christmas, so there ’s no 
call to follow me about and spy after me. ” 
“You ain’t going to London, Rosie ? ” 
“What does it matter to you or any one 
where I ’m going ? Suppose I choose to go — 
Oh, Ruth, save me ; don’t let him take me ! 
Oh, it ’ll kill me ! ” 

She had suddenly clutched hold of Ruth’s 
arm with a vehemence that was quite pain- 
ful, and buried her face on Ruth’s shoulder. 
Ruth could not account for this sudden 


Rosie s Story. 


223 


change and outbreak of fear. She was not 
quick at seeing the causes of things, except 
perhaps when Joe was concerned, and she 
did not connect Rose’s terror with the fact 
that through the open door of the waiting- 
room might be seen a policeman talking to 
one of the porters. 

But she soothed Rosie as best she could, 
putting her strong arms round the sobbing, 
trembling little figure that clung so desper- 
ately to her. There was no one else in the 
waiting-room except the two girls ; and pres- 
ently Rosie grew a little quieter, perhaps 
owing to the fact that the policeman had 
moved away. 

“Tell me,” Ruth said; “it can’t be so 
terrible bad but that something can be 
done. ” 

And then by degrees the story came out, 
how Rosie had been led on to dress far more 
expensively than she could afford, and had 


224 


Bose and Lavender . 


got into debt at several shops in Medington. 
When the shop people had pressed for pay- 
ment, she had written to her father for 
money, making out a pitiful case of her need 
of warm clothing, and of a bad cough and 
pain in her side, which had been used before 
as a means of coaxing something she wanted 
out of her father, and which, perhaps, origi- 
nally had had some slight foundation in fact, 
but was now purely imaginary. But this 
time it failed in its effect, not because the 
father’s heart was any less soft to his little 
girl’s wants, but because he was ill himself 
and money was very scarce with him just then, 
and likely to be so through the winter ; and 
all that Rosie got was a parcel containing an 
old crochet cross-over of her mother’s, and a 
petticoat which she remembered had been 
her mother’s only warm garment the winter 
before; and she knew that her mother had 
stripped herself to send these with the lov- 


Rosie's Story. 


225 


ing, ill-spelled, blotted letter, entreating her 
to take care of herself and wrap up, and 
promising to try to send her some new 
flannel when Father was better and able to 
go to work again. 

That cross -over and old petticoat ought 
to have made Rosie sorry, if anything could ; 
but Thomson was growing impatient for the 
payment of his bill for that velveteen jacket, 
and threatened to let Miss Featherly know, 
and Rosie could think of little else except 
how she could persuade him to wait for his 
money. 

It was just at this time that Rosie went up 
one day to South Hill to take home some 
work, and along with it the account of what 
was owing from Mrs. Trevor to Miss Feath- 
erly for dressmaking and millinery; and 
Mrs. Trevor, anxious to pay as quickly as 
possible, handed the money to Rosie, who 
receipted the bill in Miss Featherly ’s name. 


15 


226 


Rose and Lavender . 


It was not till Rosie was half-way back to 
the town that the temptation presented itself 
to her mind. One of Thomson’s carts 
passed and reminded her of that odious blue 
letter in her pocket, in which “an imme- 
diate settlement will oblige” was heavily 
underlined. Inside her smart little muff 
she held her purse with the money just re- 
ceived from Mrs. Trevor, and she let herself 
fancy for a moment (only, of course, fancy) 
how nice it would be if the money were hers, 
and she could just step into Thomson’s as 
she passed, and pay off the bill, and hold up 
her head again and look the world in the 
face, and not wake every morning with that 
horrid weight of unpaid debts burdening her 
mind. 

Dear reader, it so often begins like this, 
giving way to a pleasant fancy without the 
least idea of actually realizing it. I don’t 
suppose that when, Eve looked at the tree 


Rosie s Story. 


227 


and saw that it was good for food and that 
it was pleasant to the eyes, she really meant 
to take the fruit. 

When Rosie turned out of South Hill 
gates, she would have hotly resented the 
suggestion that she could possibly take that 
money of Mrs. Trevor’s or Miss Featherly’s 
that she had in her purse. “ I am not a 
thief,” she would have said; “I have always 
been honest. ” For in her code of honesty, as 
in that of many another, buying what she 
could not afford to pay for, and running into 
debt, did not count as dishonesty at all. 

But ten minutes after leaving South Hill 
that pleasant fancy was put into her head, 
and instead of being driven out at once and 
decidedly as it should have been, it was wel- 
comed and dwelt upon ; and not twenty min- 
utes later, Rosie turned into Thomson’s shop 
and paid her bill, and bought a pair of fur- 
lined gloves with the change, for what was 


228 


Rose and Lavender . 


the good of keeping three shillings and six- 
pence when the rest was gone, and she wanted 
the gloves badly this cold weather. 

When Rosie reached this point in her 
sobbing, indistinct story, Ruth’s arm, that 
had held her so firmly, loosened its hold in- 
voluntarily. Through the biting cold of the 
drive into Medington, through the beating of 
the snow, Ruth had whispered to herself, 
“For Joe’s sake;” and it had seemed as 
nothing for the love she bore him, just as 
those long years of service seemed but a few 
days to J acob ; but it wanted some stronger 
motive even than her love for Joe to over- 
come her shrinking from the dishonesty and 
deceit Rosie’s story revealed to her. This 
girl was a thief, no fit wife for an honest 
man like Joe, — poor Joe, with those great, 
hungry eyes longing so piteously for news 
of this worthless little creature. For Joe’s 
sake it would surely be better to go away 


Rosie s Story. 


229 


and leave her to her fate, to get the punish- 
ment she deserved, or to drift away out of 
sight into London, which to Ruth’s innocent 
country mind seemed full of dim, mysterious 
horrors, which, dreadful as they seemed to 
her, were not really a hundredth part of the 
actual horrors that await a homeless, friend- 
less girl cast adrift there. 

Human love will take us a very long 
way, overcome obstacles, remove difficulties, 
strengthen weak hearts to noble sacrifices. 
For J oe’s sake I think Ruth could have done 
very much; but it needed a greater love to 
make her take this poor little sinner into her 
arms, and love and pity her and take up, as 
if they were her own, the troubles and 
complications which Rosie had brought on 
herself entirely by her own folly and wicked- 
ness. It must be for Christ’s sake that we 
bear one another’s burdens, if we are ever to 
do it effectually. 


230 


Rose and Lavender. 


Directly that money had been paid over 
to Thomson’s cashier, Rosie’s punishment 
began. The receipted bill which an hour 
before she would have declared would be the 
most comforting thing she could possess, 
now seemed an accusing witness of what 
she had done. She did not know what to 
do with it ; it haunted her, and kept turning 
up at unexpected moments. She pulled it 
out of her pocket with her handkerchief, she 
dropped it on the stairs and in the work- 
room; more than one of the young ladies 
took a look at it, and Rosie could not keep 
the guilty color from flooding her face when 
they did so ; till at last she burned it, running 
the chance of having the bill sent in again, 
which was a thing Thomson was reputed 
likely to do. 

Miss Featherly asked if she had left the 
note at Mrs. Trevor’s, and Rosie plunged 
into an unnecessarily elaborate and untrue 


Rosie's Story . 


231 


account of what had happened at South Hill 
that day. She managed to avoid going to 
the house for some time, and when she was 
obliged to go, made an excuse to hurry away 
without seeing Mrs. Trevor. 

She meant to repay the money ; but when 
Ruth asked how she intended to do so, she 
could not give any clear idea of how it was 
to be done, but only a general vague hope 
that something would turn up. She could 
not sleep, and every time the post came and 
Miss Featherly opened her letters, as she did 
sometimes in the workroom, Rosie’s heart 
beat till she wondered the other girls did not 
hear it, and she turned sick and cold. And 
it was not only at post-time that she suffered 
from this nervous terror, for what was to 
prevent Mrs. Trevor from coming in any day 
and some allusion to the bill being made ? 

Those gloves, which she had bought with 
the change, split the very first time she put 


232 


Rose and Lavender . 


them on, and she was afraid to take them 
back to Thomson’s, as she would otherwise 
have done, to insist on having another pair 
in their place. 

So it had gone on for a whole month, and 
now this morning the bolt had fallen. Miss 
Featherly had sent in Mrs. Trevor’s account 
again, as that lady was leaving home for 
Christmas, and Mrs. Trevor had written 
somewhat sharply to say that the account 
had been settled some time since. 

Now Miss Featherly’s accountant had left 
at Michaelmas, and Miss Featherly had not 
replaced her, but had been doing the work 
herself ; and as she was not very good at it, 
some confusion had ensued, and some mis- 
takes had been made of bills being paid but 
not crossed off in the ledger, and Miss 
Featherly could not be quite sure of her 
memory in this case. 

So, perhaps, if Rosie had still been friends 


Rosie's Story . 


233 


with Miss Sinclair and the other girls in the 
workroom, she might have escaped discovery 
altogether; but Miss Sinclair’s memory, 
sharpened by dislike of Rosie, clearly re- 
called the fact that Mrs. Trevor’s account 
had been sent by her hand when she took 
home that lady’s evening bodice. 

Then followed that stormy interview 
which the cook had overheard, in which 
Rosie denied all knowledge of the matter, 
and Miss Featherly, half believing her, set- 
tled that she should be the bearer of a note 
to Mrs. Trevor, apologizing for the over- 
sight, and asking her to be so kind as to say 
when and to whom the account was paid. 

“Here’s the letter,” Rosie said, produc- 
ing a crumpled envelope that had been 
crushed into her muff, “but, of course, I 
was n’t going to take it. I never meant to, 
but it just gave me time to get away. They 
won’t expect me back till dinner-time, and 


234 


Rose and Lavender . 


if I ’m not in then, they ’ll think Mrs. 
Trevor kept me as she do sometimes, or the 
snow has made me late, and I shall be in 
London by then, and no one ’ll ever hear any 
more of me. But, oh, Ruth, it give me 
such a turn to see the policeman at the 
door. Miss Featherly threatened to give 
me in charge, and she ’d do it as soon as 
look at me.” 


Mrs. Trevor's Help. 


235 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MRS. TREVOR’S HELP. 

Dare to be true ; nothing can need a lie ; 

A fault which needs it most grows two thereby. 

George Herbert. 

There was a decided tone of relief in 
Rosie’s voice as she finished her story, 
though she had cried and trembled and clung 
to Ruth as she told it. Now it was out, it 
did not seem so overwhelmingly bad; now 
that she could turn to some one and say, 
“ Whatever can I do ? ” part of the weight 
seemed lifted off her. 

As for Ruth, she felt as if she had taken 
some of the guilt on herself, as if she could 
no longer look any one straight in the 
face, or defy the world to cast a doubt on 
her truth and honesty. She started when 


236 


Rose and Lavender . 


some one came into the waiting-room; she 
looked round and sank her voice almost 
to a whisper when any one was within 
earshot. 

“Wait a bit,” she said, “we must see 
what we ’d best do. ” 

“I’d best go to London.” 

“No, you ain’t going there anyhow. 
Could n’t you go home ? ” 

“ No, they ’d find me there, and I could n’t 
bear that Father should know. He ’s always 
been so honest, he ’s had that character from 
every master he’s been with. 4 I’d trust 
Bailey with untold gold,’ old Mr. Hawkins 
used to say. He ’d take a drop too much 
now and again, and he were n’t always very 
choice in his talk, Father were n’t, but no 
one ever said a word against his honesty. 
I never see Father so angry as he were when 
Tom took some halfpence. He beat him till 
I thought he ’d pretty near have killed him, 


Mrs . Trevor s Help . 


237 


and he said he ’d turn him out of doors if he 
caught him thieving again.” 

“ And yet, ” began Ruth, “ you — ” 
“Don’t!” Rosie cried, “it wasn’t thiev- 
ing. Don’t you see, Ruth, I meant to pay 
it ; that ’s not thieving. Thomson worried 
so for his money, and I just borrowed it. 
I ’m not a thief ! Don’t be unkind and 
cruel, Ruth, and call me hard names ! ” 

“It don’t much matter what we call it. 
It were n’t honest, and it ’s no use mincing 
matters. Look here, Rose, Mrs. Trevor ’s 
always been kind to you, ain’t she ? ” 
“Yes, but she’s a terribly particular sort 
of lady. She ’s very religious, you know, 
and I ’ve seen her sometimes look very sharp 
when she thought something was not quite 
as she approved.” 

“ It seems to me, ” said Ruth, “ as the only 
thing to do is to go to her, — oh, I ’ll go with 
you,” for Rosie had made a very decided 


238 


Rose and Lavender. 


motion of refusal, — “and just tell her the 
truth. ” 

“You don’t know what she ’s like,” Rose 
said, “she looks at you so straight; and 
once, when she found out I ’d said something 
not just true, she gave me such a look, and 
though she did n’t say anything, I felt as 
if I ’d been beaten. She ’s not one to be 
coaxed, if that ’s what you ’re thinking of. 
I don’t think anything would make her keep 
it dark and not let Miss Featherly know.” 

“I didn’t mean that,” Ruth said, “but 
just to tell her the truth and ask what we ’d 
better do.” 

It was ever so long before Ruth could get 
Rosie to agree to go with her to Mrs. 
Trevor’s, and when at last they set off, Ruth 
almost doubted if they would ever get there, 
for it was hard work even for her to get 
along through the driving snow, which al- 
ready lay an inch thick on the road; and 


Mrs. Trevor s Help. 


239 


Rosie was so exhausted and worn out that 
she seemed physically unable to cope with 
the weather, even with the support of Ruth’s 
arm and the shelter of the green umbrella, 
and Rosie’s unwillingness to go did not help 
to make the way easier. 

By the time they reached South Hill, 
fright and cold and fatigue had made Rosie 
almost unconscious, and when they went 
into the well-warmed hall, and Ruth’s sup- 
porting arm was withdrawn, she made two 
uncertain steps forward, and sank down on 
the ground in a dead faint. 

Perhaps that white, senseless young face 
paved the way better than anything else 
could have done for a pitiful reception of the 
story Ruth had to tell ; though I think Rosie 
had misjudged Mrs. Trevor’s kind heart, 
which, to be sure, hated deceit and untruth, 
but had some of her Master’s tender compas- 
sion for the sinner. 


240 


Bose and Lavender. 


It was on Mrs. Trevor’s arm that the 
girl’s head rested when she came hack to 
sick, shuddering consciousness; and cer- 
tainly the look in the kind, motherly face 
could not have conveyed the feeling of a 
beating to the most guilty conscience. “ You 
should not have let her come out such a day 
as this,” Mrs. Trevor said to Ruth, who was 
tired and exhausted too, but whose face, as 
her mother used to say, did not pity her. 
“ She ’s never very strong, I should think, and 
it ’s so tiring walking in the snow. There, 
don’t try to talk just yet,” she said to Rosie, 
who, having had restoratives administered, 
was lying on the sofa in the pretty morning- 
room. “You will not be able to go back 
just yet, and perhaps your friend can tell me 
why you have come. If it was a note from 
Miss Featherly, I think it might have come 
by the post, such weather as this. ” 

It was no pleasant business for Ruth, but 


Mrs. Trevor's Help. 


241 


she went at it boldly, telling the truth 
bluntly, and making no excuses or trying 
to extenuate it in any way; while Rosie 
turned her head away and covered her face, 
and gave a little, shuddering sob every now 
and then, which sounded very pathetic to 
Miss Trevor, who was inclined to think 
Ruth a little brutal and hard on the pretty, 
silly little girl who had been led away by 
vanity and love of dress. 

But Mrs. Trevor, who had seen more of 
the world than her daughter, did Ruth more 
justice, guessing, perhaps, at the true, hon- 
est soul beneath that unattractive exterior 
and blunt, rather defiant manner, and under- 
standing how the girl revolted at the deceit 
and dishonesty, and felt as if she were 
touching pitch and defiling herself by hav- 
ing to do with it, and yet being too faithful 
and tender to go away and leave her friend 
in this scrape. 


16 


242 


Rose and Lavender. 


“ And what have you got to say about it ? ” 
Mrs. Trevor said, turning to Rosie with 
what her daughter thought was an unneces- 
sarily severe manner. 

Only sobs replied; and Ruth answered: 
“ She ’s very sorry, and of course me and 
Mother ’ll see that the money ’s made good. 
Rosie’s father have been ill, so he couldn’t 
do it, but we ’ll see as that ’ll be all right. 
Not as that ’ll clear Rosie, and of course if 
Miss Featherly or you chooses to send her to 
prison, she ’s bound to go ; but whether or 
no, we’ll pay the money as she stole.” 

“ And why did you come to me and not to 
Miss Featherly ? ” 

“We thought — ’’began Ruth; but Rosie 
interrupted her, getting up from the sofa, 
and throwing herself on her knees before 
Mrs. Trevor. 

“We thought you’d be sure to be kind 
and good if we came to you, and that you 


Mrs. Trevor s Help . 


243 


wouldn’t tell Miss Featherly, but let us 
pay off the money by degrees, and I ’d never, 
never — ” 

“You’d better go and lie down, or you 
may get faint again,” Mrs. Trevor said in a 
very chilling voice; and Rosie shrank back 
to her former position, while Mrs. Trevor 
turned to Ruth. “Did you suppose that I 
should think it right to conceal what had 
happened from Miss Featherly ? ” 

“No,” Ruth said; “but I thought if you 
didn’t mind telling her, she mightn’t be so 
hard on Rosie here.” 

“Yes,” Mrs. Trevor said; “that is what I 
can do, and I think the best thing I can do 
is to go down with you myself and see Miss 
Featherly. My good child,” she added, as 
Rosie made an inarticulate protest, “it is 
much the best and wisest thing to be done, 
and your friend is quite right. I will do my 
best to persuade Miss Featherly to deal 


244 


Rose and Lavender . 


leniently with you, and give you an oppor- 
tunity of regaining your character. And I 
am willing to pay my account over again in 
order that Miss Featherly may not be the 
loser by your dishonesty, but I shall expect 
you to repay me. Not you,” she said, as 
Ruth began a hasty assurance that she and 
her mother would undertake the repayment, 
“ but Rose Bailey, and out of her own money 
too, not from her father. It can be paid in 
instalments, but it must be paid to the last 
halfpenny. ” 

“Of course she will,” Ruth said; “she 
won’t rest till it’s paid.” 

But Mrs. Trevor did not feel so sure that 
Rosie would feel the obligation as strongly 
as it was evident Ruth would. 

“ I will send you some lunch in here, ” she 
said, “ and order the carriage in half an hour 
to take us down to Miss Featherly’s. You 
will be better when you have had something 


Mrs. Trevor's Help. 


245 


to eat ; ” for Rosie had fallen back in a half- 
fainting condition. 

She really felt very bad, but she made no 
effort against the faintness, feeling that they 
would pity and be gentle to her, and perhaps 
think her too ill to go to Miss Featherly’s. 

“ Come, Hilda ! ” Mrs. Trevor called away 
her daughter, who was coming to the rescue 
with smelling-salts and restoratives. “We 
will leave her quiet, and she will be better 
by and by. My dear, it does not do to pity 
the little girl too much,” she added, when 
they were out of the room ; “ she is pitying 
herself so very much, and she must not be 
encouraged to give way.” 

“She will not get much pity from that 
friend of hers,” Hilda said. 

“ Ah ! ” her mother answered, “ I don’t 
think you do that girl justice. There ’s 
something good and honest and true about 
her, and it ’s really more for her sake than 


246 


Rose and Lavender. 


for Rose Bailey’s that I shall do my best to 
soften Miss Featherly. There, listen!” she 
added, as the sound of Rosie’s voice in quick, 
animated tones reached their ears, though 
they could not hear the words ; “ she is not 
fainting, you see.” 

“I told you so,” Rosie was saying; “I 
said Mrs. Trevor was hard and cruel and 
unkind. And it ’s mean of her ! She ’s so 
rich, she never would feel the want of the 
money if she just paid it over again and said 
nothing about it. It ’s no more to her than 
sixpence would be to you or me. And now 
there ’s no getting out of it. She will tell 
Miss Featherly, and I shall have to go to 
prison. It ’s all your fault, Ruth Tilbury ; 
I did n’t want to come, and you would make 
me. But I won’t go to Miss Featherly’s, 
that I won’t! I’d go right off now, only 
I ’m so ill I could n’t get to the station 
through the snow, and you dragged me up 


Mrs. Trevor s Help. 


247 


here. Oh, I wish I had n’t met you ! But 
I ’ll get away somehow when we get into the 
town. ” 

So she kept on ; and Ruth at first tried to 
soothe and coax her, but, finding that use- 
less, relapsed into silence, being very sick 
at heart herself, and uncertain if she had 
really acted for the best. When the lunch 
was brought in, she persuaded Rosie to eat 
something, wondering a little in herself at 
the girl, in spite of her excitement and 
despair, being able almost to enjoy some 
cake and take a second piece of it, while she 
herself could hardly bring herself to touch 
anything, and did not know what it was she 
was trying to swallow. 

As Mrs. Trevor had said, Rosie was de- 
cidedly better for eating something, though 
she would not have acknowledged it her- 
self, and looked very piteous when Mrs. 
Trevor came into the room and said the 


248 


Rose and Lavender . 


carriage was ready, and they must start 
at once. 

But even Hilda Trevor’s pity for the girl 
was somewhat lessened by noticing that she 
gave a little, quick look into the glass as she 
left the room, and straightened her hat and 
pulled a curl into better position, while 
Ruth’s bonnet, which was decidedly on one 
side, remained without any attention. 

I do not think Mrs. Trevor’s coachman 
much liked bringing out his sleek, well- 
groomed horses and taking them down into 
Medington, for the snow was thick enough 
now to ball in their hoofs, and he had to 
stop more than once to clear it out; and 
still less did he like waiting outside Miss 
Featherly’s while the interview between his 
mistress and that lady took place. 

But Ruth would a hundred times rather 
have been out in the snow holding the reins 
in numbed hands, and quieting fidgety 


Mrs. Trevor's Help. 


249 


horses, than have been in the warm show- 
room, hearing the story of Rosie’s dishon- 
esty told to Miss Featherly, whose face 
gradually hardened and tightened into set 
lines, though all the time she kept up the 
bland smile and deferential manner that was 
part of her stock in trade with influential 
customers. 

The two girls stood together by the door, 
and once when Miss Featherly turned and 
cast a glance at Rosie, Ruth took the girl’s 
hand and made a movement as if she would 
have come between and protected her from 
the look that was almost a blow. 

“I .am sure you are very kind, madam,” 
Miss Featherly said (she began nearly every 
sentence in this manner), “but it is quite 
impossible for this young person to remain 
in my establishment any longer. I have 
always been very particular as to the char- 
acter of the young people I employ. I think 


250 


Rose and Lavender . 


it is due to my customers to be particular, 
and though I would do anything to oblige a 
lady, I could not do so at the expense of the 
high character of my establishment. ” 

“ I think you are quite right in principle, ” 
Mrs. Trevor said, “and I do not for a mo- 
ment wish to excuse or palliate what this 
girl has done ; but I should be very glad if 
you saw your way to giving her another 
trial, and I am quite willing to draw a check 
for my account, and let the girl repay it to 
me by degrees, if you will let her stop on, at 
any rate for a time, and regain her char- 
acter. I am sure this will be a severe lesson 
to her, and she is very young, and I hope 
and believe sorry for what she has done, and 
anxious to amend. ” 

Rosie was vehement in her protestations 
of repentance and promises of improvement, 
and after much hesitation Miss Featherly 
allowed herself to be persuaded. 


Mrs. Trevor s Help . 


251 


Mrs. Trevor was undoubtedly too good a 
customer to be lost, and after all, if the 
money was paid, Miss Featherly would not 
be in any way a loser, and yet would have 
put Mrs. Trevor under an obligation to her, 
and gained a character for benevolence and 
kindness; and all the same Rose Bailey 
should be well paid out, as Miss Featherly 
quite knew how, and would not in any way 
have got the better of her. 

Rosie perhaps knew better than either 
Ruth or Mrs. Trevor what lay behind Miss 
Featherly’s smiling agreement to give the 
poor child another chance, and she watched 
Mrs. Trevor’s departure without any of the 
peace of mind which that lady hoped had 
been restored to her. 

“ Of course, ” Mrs. Trevor said, as she took 
leave, “it will be better for all concerned 
that nothing should be said about this, I 
will not mention it, and I am sure you will 


252 


Rose and Lavender . 


see that it does not get about among the 
other girls.” 

“Certainly, madam, you may quite rely 
upon me. Allow me to help you on with 
your cloak. I hope you will not suffer from 
this exposure to the inclemency of the 
weather. — James, are you sure the steps are 
not slippery? — Good-morning, madam. — You 
can go to the workroom, ” in a very different 
tone to Rosie. — “I’m sure I don’t at all 
know who you may be,” to Ruth, “but I 
presume you ’re one of Miss Bailey’s friends ; 
and as birds of a feather flock together, I 
think the sooner you ’re out of the house the 
better.” And Miss Featherly ostentatiously 
locked a drawer and put a cash-box out of 
reach. — “James, show this person out, and 
don’t lose sight of her till she ’s off the 
premises. — Did you hear what I said ? ” for 
Ruth, though her cheeks were burning- with 
the insults, was lingering to whisper some- 


Mrs. Trevor s Help. 


253 


thing in Rosie’s ears. “It ’s bad enough to 
have one thief about the place ; I won’t have 
two. ” 

“ Rosie, ” Ruth whispered, “ will you send 
a word to Joe ? He ’s longing to hear of 
you. May I give him your love, and say 
you ’ve not forgot him ? ” 

Rosie nodded, and at another sharp “ Miss 
Bailey ! ” from Miss Featherly, turned away. 


254 


Rose and Lavender . 


CHAPTER XVII. 
joe’s birthday. 

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
Into his study of imagination. 

Shakspeabe. 

That day, which had been so eventful to 
Ruth in Medington, passed very monotonously 
at Milling. J oe quite realized his mother’s 
complaint that he was as fractious as a baby 
teething, and “just because Ruth happened 
to be away, he chose to get up and put on his 
clothes, which he had n’t done, nor wished 
to do for ever so long, and much better abed 
this weather, which was bad enough for folks 
in health.” 

He looked ever so much worse in his or- 
dinary clothes, which hung so loosely upon 
him, showing how he had wasted, and the 


Joes Birthday . 


255 


exertion of dressing tired him very much; 
and I think he would have given up the at- 
tempt, and gladly crept back to bed again, 
if his mother had not kept on advising him 
to do so, reminding him that she had told 
him it would be too much for him, and that 
he had best have taken her advice. 

If she had kept on much longer in the 
same strain, he would have insisted, out of 
pure contrariness, on going downstairs, and 
even might have tottered into his workshop, 
so strong is the spirit of perversity. But 
happily Mrs. Martin was called downstairs 
jto her ironing, and Mrs. Tilbury had a more 
soothing effect on this refractory patient. 

She did not oppose Joe’s wish to have his 
chair drawn near the window, though she 
knew Mrs. Martin would be displeased, as 
no amount of pasting or padding would pre- 
vent cunning little draughts from finding 
their way between the diamond panes of the 


256 


Rose and Lavender. 


window, and as the wind was that way, the 
snow settled on the lead settings and ob- 
scured the view so much that there was not 
much advantage to be gained by the draughty 
position. 

Mrs. Tilbury was always inclined to be 
nervous, and in the most favorable circum- 
stances no one could go anywhere or do any- 
thing without her imagining all sorts of 
dangers and difficulties that might befall; 
but to-day she was quite outdone in nervous- 
ness by Joe, who could think and talk of 
nothing but the falling snow and the state 
of the roads, and, when any one came to the 
door, was in a fever to hear how the weather 
looked from outside, and if the wind was 
drifting the snow. 

And dinner was not over before he began 
to expect the farmer to return, though his 
mother and Mrs. Tilbury assured him that 
in the best of weather the farmer was not 


Joes Birthday. 


257 


often home before five, and that with the 
heavy roads he was sure to be a good bit 
later. Then, as ill luck would have it, Mrs. 
Tilbury took up the “Medington Mercury” 
to spell out a little local news to distract 
his mind, and could light on nothing but 
accounts of accidents from the slippery con- 
dition of the roads. 

One part of the afternoon Mrs. Martin 
came up to give Joe his medicine, and found 
him quieter, and Mrs. Tilbury, having laid 
aside the newspaper which had not been a 
success, prosing away in her long-winded, 
objectless fashion, about old times when 
Ruth was a child, and what an old-fashioned, 
sensible little body she was, so helpful and 
thoughtful beyond her years. “As if that 
was the way to amuse Joe ! ” Mrs. Martin 
said to herself impatiently; “ bless my 
heart ! she might as well have gone on about 
the tom-nat ! ” 


17 


258 


Rose and Lavender . 


Perhaps Joe, leaning back in his arm- 
chair by the fire, was thinking of something 
else, for Mrs. Tilbury’s droning talk did not 
seem to come amiss to him. Perhaps he 
had guessed what Ruth had gone into Med- 
ington for, and his impatience for her re- 
turn was the longing for that news of Rosie, 
which Ruth had read in his. hungry eyes 
when she resolved to go. 

It must have been this birthday present 
that Ruth was trying to get for him, that 
brought back to his mind the memory of his 
unfinished present for her, — those shoes 
which had been pushed aside into a corner 
while he devoted himself to those unlucky 
shoes for Rosie, and which he had never 
touched since; and he persuaded Mrs. Til- 
bury to go down into his workshop to find 
them and bring them up. 

He did not even know what had become of 
them, or in which corner they had been poked 


Joes Birthday. 


259 


away, and Mrs. Tilbury was not a good 
finder' of anything, and, as a rule, hunted in 
every wrong direction before she went to the 
right one ; and she brought up first a pair of 
child’s shoes, and then the upper leathers of 
a man’s, before she lighted on Ruth’s. 

But you cannot think, dear reader, all the 
memories those clumsy, dusty, half-finished 
shoes brought to Joe’s mind. He was weak 
and ill, and his mind unemployed and open 
to impressions, or perhaps he would not 
have been so fanciful ; but they brought back 
vividly summer days, and the warm sunshine 
coming through the open door as he sat at 
work, and the smell of lavender, and the hum 
of bees, and the sound of Ruth’s quick, brisk 
step on the bricks outside, as she went back- 
ward and forward hanging the clothes on 
the line, and the look of her pleasant, kindly 
face as she passed the door now and again 
with a nod and a smile, and never many 


260 Rose and Lavender . 

1 _ 

minutes went by without either his mother 
or hers calling after her, “ Ruth ! Ruth ! what 
be at? Come here a minute,” and always 
the ready, cheerful answer, “I’m a-coming. 
All right, Mother ! ” Always good-tempered, 
never once sharp or impatient, though the 
same could not always be said of either of 
those who called her, and always, though it 
were twenty times in one afternoon, off went 
Ruth’s feet to see what was wanted, — no fairy 
footfall, but a good, honest clump, clump, 
and, in wet weather, clacketty-clacket on 
pattens. 

It was not likely that those awkward- 
looking shoes should suggest anything poeti- 
cal or romantic, least of all about such an 
utterly unpoetical, unromantic, matter-of- 
fact person as Ruth; and yet Joe’s eyes filled 
with tears as he looked at them, and he said 
to Mrs. Tilbury, “ The very first job of work 
I do when I get well, is these shoes. ” 


Joe's Birthday . 


261 


How the snow kept falling! Even Mrs. 
Martin, who was not given to nervous fan- 
cies, began to wish Ruth were safe at home, 
though she snapped Mrs. Tilbury’s head off 
for expressing the same wish. 

It was nearly dark by three, so full was 
the sky of soft flakes, falling, falling so 
silently and persistently. 

Mrs. Tilbury wished to light the lamp and 
draw the curtains up in Joe’s room; but Joe 
would not have the curtain drawn, though 
she might light the lamp if she liked and 
poke up the fire into a ruddy blaze. He fan- 
cied the light from the window showed some 
way along the road, even through the falling 
snow, and might guide the travellers on 
their way. J 

“I do wish Ruth would come,” Mrs. 
Tilbury saicl, coming down, as she had done 
so many times before, to see what time it 
was by the clock downstairs, as J oe thought 


262 


Rose and Lavender. 


his watch must have stopped. “Joe, there 
he ’s working himself into a perfect fever ; 
he ’s not quiet for two minutes together, and 
it do make one that nervous as there ain’t 
no bearing.” 

“You did oughter be ashamed of yourself, 
Jane Tilbury, at your age,” Mrs. Martin 
answered severely, “ and I ’ve no patience 
with you ! Why, whatever is there likely to 
happen to Ruth ? It ’s not to be wondered 
at so much in Joe, being ill and nervous like, 
^ but you didn’t ought to encourage him in 
such silliness, and I ’ll be bound you made 
him ten times worse. Why, it ’s as likely 
as not they won’t be here for another hour, 
and I, for one, sha’n’t put myself a bit out if 
they ain’t — Ah, there they be ! now, did n’t 
I tell you as they ’d be here directly ? ” 

And the two women had the door open in 
a moment, and held the lamp so that the 
light shone down to the gate. Yes, there 


Joe's Birthday. 


263 


they were; that was the farmer shaking a 
heap of snow off the capes of his coat and 
the brim of his hat, and helping down his 
equally snowy companion, for Ruth’s gray 
shawl was hardly to be discerned through its 
white covering. 

“Here you are! Why, we thought you 
was never coming. You must have had bad 
travelling, sure ! ” 

Upstairs Joe heard the sound of the re- 
turn before even the women did, though the 
wheels were quite inaudible on the snow; 
but he heard the sound of the farmer’s voice, 
and the jingle of the mare’s harness, and the 
rattle of the gate-latch, and the trampling of 
feet in the porch, and the clatter of voices 
all speaking together, — not Ruth’s though, 
— and he smiled to himself, for Ruth was 
never much of a talker, and besides she must 
be tired and cold, and not good for much till 
she had had a cup of tea and got a bit of the 


264 


Rose and Lavender . 


cold out of her. “ I hope Mother ’s thought 
of having the kettle on all ready. Why, if 
Ruth had been at home and any one else 
like to come in cold and tired, there ’d have 
been safe to be a cup of tea just ready; but 
there, we ’ve all of us been spoilt by having 
her to think for the lot of us. ” 

Now the farmer had gone, and the voices 
sank lower. “They ’ll come up by and by,” 
Joe told himself, trying to stifle the fidgety 
impatience that possessed him. “ Of course, 
she wouldn’t come straight away up; she ’d 
want to take off her things and get a bit 
warm. ” 

But as the time passed on, and there was 
still that low hum of earnest conversation 
in the room below, he began to get very im- 
patient. Surely, do you not think, dear 
reader, he must have had some guess at the 
object of Ruth’s visit to Medington, since he 
was so impatient to see her. Why, Ruth’s 


Joes Birthday. 


265 


comings and goings had never been of so 
much interest to him before! It seemed 
ages to him before there was any sound of 
a move below, but at last he heard chairs 
being pushed back, and the door at the foot 
of the stairs was opened. 

His mother came up first, and if he had 
looked at her he might have noticed that 
there was a very odd look on her face; but 
he looked past her to the next comer, with 
such an eager look, as if he might have ex- 
pected to read Rosie’s message on Ruth’s 
very face. 

Nor did he pay any attention to his 
mother’s words, which might have prepared 
him for what followed. 

“Here’s quite a surprise for you, Joe,” 
she was saying. “ It ’s ever so long since 
we had a visitor, ain’t it?” 

And then she stood aside, and Joe saw 
Rosie Bailey standing there, her cheeks 


266 


Bose and Lavender . 


flushed with the fire after the frosty air, her 
hair curling in the same pretty confusion as 
usual, her eyes bright and shining in spite 
of the tears they had shed, and looking 
shyly, appealingly at him, as she stretched 
out both her hands to him. 

“ Oh, Joe ! ” she said, “ dear J oe, how 
very ill you must have been ! ” 

But Joe’s eyes passed on to the empty 
doorway behind her. 

“ Where ’s Ruth ? ” he said. 


Lost . 


267 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

LOST. 

For it falls out 

That what we have we prize not to its worth 
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, 

Why, then we lack the value ; then we find 
The virtue, that possession would not show us 
Whiles it was ours. 

Shakspeare. 

To explain Rosie’s appearance at the cot- 
tage by the pond that evening of Joe’s birth- 
day, we must go back to the time when Ruth 
left Miss Featherly’s, feeling stung and in- 
sulted, but at the same time as if she had 
half deserved the treatment, while Rosie 
went to take her old place in the workroom. 

“ You may quite depend on me, madam,” 
Miss Featherly had said to Mrs. Trevor, 
when that lady had suggested that Rosie’s 
dishonesty should not be made known in the 


268 


Rose and Lavender . 


workroom ; but, whether intentionally or not 
I cannot be sure, the matter was known all 
over the house before Mrs. Trevor was in her 
carriage, and was being freely discussed in 
the workroom and among the servants in the 
kitchen. 

Rosie could see it at once by the way in 
which the girls drew away from her when 
she came in, and one of them snatched up 
her scissors and thimble, as if even those 
well-worn articles were not to be trusted 
within Rosie’s reach. 

There was dead silence for a few minutes, 
during which meaning glances were ex- 
changed, heads tossed, eyebrows raised, and 
corners of mouths turned down; and then 
Miss Sinclair began to relate in very distinct 
tones, addressed pointedly to Miss Strange, 
how she had lost a silver locket which she 
greatly valued. 

“ Did you drop it in the street, dear ? ” 


Lost . 


269 


asked Miss Strange, who would not have 
ventured on such a term of endearment at 
any other time. 

“No; I don’t think so, but I may have 
left it lying about on my chest of drawers. ” 

“Yes, to be sure!” said Ellen Strange, 
with a spiteful little laugh and glance in 
Rosie’s direction; ‘‘and such things have 
legs nowadays, and take themselves off. 
Well, and I shouldn’t wonder if that was 
the way about that bangle of mine ; I 
could n’t think where it had gone, and 
thought I must have pulled it off with my 
glove sometime. One don’t like to suspect 
people, and I will say that for Eliza, she ’s 
as honest a girl as breathes.” 

And after that, one after another of the 
girls recounted some mysterious loss of 
property, the smallest whipper-snapper of an 
apprentice piping out some story of lost half- 
pence or ribbon or thimble; and if Rosie 


270 


Rose and Lavender. 


was responsible for all this loss of property, 
she must have had a curious collection of 
odds and ends in her possession. 

But it was none the less galling, because 
of the absurd exaggeration and pettiness of 
the suspicions; and Rosie got hot and cold, 
crimson and pale, and her hands trembled 
so that she could scarcely hold her work, 
and her eyes were burning with restrained 
scalding tears of anger and shame, till at 
last she could endure it no longer, and got 
up and went out of th^ room, followed by a 
parting shaft from Miss Strange, who hoped 
that none of them had left anything lying 
about in their bedrooms. 

Rosie only meant, when she went out, to 
get a minute’s peace, and cool her scorched 
cheeks, and choke down the passionate sobs 
that kept rising in her throat. “If I cry and 
make a silly of myself, it will make them 
all the worse.” 


Lost . 


271 


But when she got outside the door, a des- 
perate wish to escape altogether came over 
her, and snatching up her hat and knitted 
cloud, without waiting to put on her jacket, 
she slipped through the hall, unnoticed by 
any one, opened the door, and was out in the 
snow. 

Ruth was waiting outside the “ Marquis of 
Granby ” for the farmer. It had struck 
three, but he had not made his appearance, 
and she was standing under an archway 
which afforded shelter from the falling 
snow. She was cold and tired, and, what 
she called herself, a bit cross, but what in 
any one else might have been accounted out 
of spirits. She felt as if she had been 
beaten all over, and as if she wanted nothing 
but just to get home and creep into bed. 

“Well, anyhow,” she said to herself, 
“I ’ye got the message for Joe as he ’s been 
longing so for. I ain’t come for nothing.” 


272 


Rose and Lavender. 


Just then the farmer came hurrying up, 
conscious of being behind time, — punctu- 
ality being a virtue he specially prided him- 
self on, — and a little bit vexed to see Ruth 
more punctual than himself. 

“ I sha’n’t be a minute,” he said ; “ and the 
sooner we ’re off: the better, for the roads 
will be something shocking, and it don’t 
look like getting any better. And a heavy 
load we shall be too, for Curtis asked me to 
give him and his nephew a lift, as their nag 
fell lame on the way in, and they ’ve left 
him at the vet’s to be doctored. I’da deal 
rather have had only you and me for old 
Bess to take home, but I could n’t say no to 
Curtis, being a neighbor, and always willing 
to do a good turn himself.” 

And then he went in to see to the harness- 
ing of the mare, and Ruth waited under the 
archway. But just as the cart was coming 
out of the “Marquis of Granby,” some one 


Lost. 


273 


ran across the road and caught hold of 
Ruth’s arm. It was Rosie. 

“ Oh, Ruth, take me home with you ! I 
can’t stop here. It ’s more than any one 
can stand. They ’re all pecking and jeering 
at me ; every one of them has some ill word 
to throw at me. If you don’t let me come 
home with you, I ’ll just die in the street 
here. I ’d rather that a deal than go back 
to Miss Featherly’s. ” 

“To be sure, I’ll take you home,” came 

the ready reply ; “ at least Farmer Cartright 

will. Joe, he will be pleased to see you, 

and no mistake ! You just jump up in my 

place, — the farmer, he won’t mind, — and 

I ’ll come home by train. You tell Mother 

I ’m coming, though most likes I shall be 

there as soon as you will. And, dear heart ! 

you ain’t no jacket nor nothing; here, just 

put on my shawl, you ’ll find it terrible cold 

driving. — You won’t mind,” she went on to 
is 


274 


Rose and Lavender. 


the farmer, who had just turned out of the 
yard with the two men he was going to take 
back already established in the back seat, — 
“you won’t mind taking this young person 
instead of me. She ’s going to our place, 
and I ’ve got something I wants to do, and 
am coming out by train.” 

The farmer scratched his head reflectively. 
“I don’t know as I can take both of you,” 
he said. “ Old Bess ain’t as strong as she 
were, and if she breaks down on the road, it 
would be a poor business for all of us, but I 
don’t like leaving you behind. Can’t the 
young person come another day ? ” 

“Oh, I shall be all right,” Ruth said, help- 
ing Rosie up as she spoke, and pulling the 
shawl more closely round her. “ There ’s safe 
to be some one coming our way from War- 
ford who ’ll bring me along. Tell Mother 
not to worry.” 

And then the farmer drove off rather un- 


Lost. 


275 


willingly, and was a very surly companion 
all the way home, constantly, as old Bess 
breasted a hill or successfully passed some 
landmark on the road, breaking out into 
regrets that he had not brought Ruth, as 
he ’d be bound the old mare would have 
managed to take the lot of them. 

Ruth was not given to pity herself, and 
she only gave one little sigh at the thought 
of that getting home, and the fire and the 
cup of tea and the warm bed which had 
seemed not so very far away ten minutes 
ago, but which had now gone almost out 
of hoping distance. 

She shivered, too, a little bit for want of 
the shawl, but more at the thought of how 
cold Rosie would have been without it, than 
from her own chilliness; and then she put 
up the green umbrella again, and set off for 
the station. She had always been into Med- 
ington by road, and they were none of them 


276 


Rose and Lavender. 


frequent travellers by rail, and she had very 
little notion what trains ran between Meding- 
ton and Warford; but it was vexatious to 
find that there was not another till six, and 
that she had over two hours to wait, and 
then would come the two miles’ walk in the 
snow and in the dark. 

“And Mother will be that anxious and 
worried ! And I ’d ’a’ liked to be there to 
say a word or two as to how Rosie come; 
but there ! that don’t matter. Joe ’s sure to 
make it right, no fear ! ” 

She sat down by the fire in the waiting- 
room, — that same room where she had sat 
so long in the morning with Rosie and heard 
the story of her difficulties. Several trains 
came and went ; and each one this inexperi- 
enced traveller thought must be hers. The 
porters got cross at her repeated question 
if this was the train to Warford, and an- 
swered her shortly; and being afraid to ask 


Lost. 


277 


again, she got into the next train that 
started, and was only rescued from being 
carried straight up to London at the last 
moment by a porter who knew where she 
was bound for. 

But at last the right train came, and the 
short journey between Medington and War- 
ford was accomplished, and there she was at 
Warford with the lights of the station shin- 
ing a little way along the white road, and 
beyond that the pitch-dark night, and the 
snow still falling. 

“ There ’s safe to be some one coming from 
Warford our way, who’ll bring me along,” 
she had said to Farmer Cartright; and he 
had thought the same. But as it turned 
out, she was the only passenger who got out 
at the station, and there were no vehicles of 
any sort in the station-yard waiting for ex- 
pected arrivals. 

“Well,” she said to herself stoutly, “I 


278 


Rose and Lavender . 


know the way well enough. I ’d find it 
blindfolded, and there ain’t no chance of 
missing it, if one keeps one’s wits about 
one. There ’s the lane, and the bit of hill, 
and the bridge, and then that open bit of 
heath, and then you ’re almost there. ” 

“I’d lend you my lantern,” the porter 
said as she bid him good-night and set off 
into the darkness, “ but I ’m bound to have 
it when I turns out the lights and locks up 
after the last train. And I ’d set you a bit 
on your way, but I ’m in charge till station- 
master comes back.” 

“I’m all right,” Ruth’s cheerful voice 
answered back out of the darkness. “ Good- 
night. ” 

“There, whatever is the good of opening 
that door every five minutes ? ” snapped 
Mrs. Martin, having done the very same her- 
self not long before. “ Don’t you know as a 


Lost. 


279 


watched pot never boils ? and she won’t 
come any the quicker for your catching your 
death of cold, and letting the raw air into 
the house. And I wish to goodness Joe 
would go to bed. He ’ll make himself ill 
again, certain sure, and this the first day as 
he ’s been out of bed for more than an hour, 
or put on his clothes. And he won’t even 
have the curtain drawn, though there ’s 
bound to be a draught from that window, 
and it ain’t much good Rosie Bailey sitting 
up there and trying to talk to him. He 
don’t' pay no manner of heed to what she ’s 
saying, and there ’s no denying as she do 
talk foolish like half her time, but he used 
to be the last to think it. Men ’s that con- 
trary, there ’s no knowing what ’ll please 
them. Why, many ’s a time I ’ve thought 
he was fretting a bit after her, and taking it 
hard as she ’d never come nor sent ; and yet 
now she’s here as large as life, he don’t' 


280 


Rose and Lavender. 


seem to care a snap, and makes as though 
he ’d quite as lief she ’d stopped away. 
Why, bless me, here’s Ruth! Wasn’t I 
just a-telling you she’d be here directly? 
— Come in, child, you’ll be perished.” 

But it was not Ruth, but Farmer Cart- 
right; and somehow the sight of him brought 
back to both women’s minds, with a sudden 
chill, the remembrance of that day long ago 
when he came to break the heavy tidings of 
the two husbands’ deaths, though now he 
came out of the pitch darkness, and was 
covered with snow like pictures of old 
Father Christmas, and then he came in the 
spring sunshine with the crocuses blooming 
by the path. 

“ Ain’t that girl come in yet ? ” he said, 
looking round with uneasy eyes at the warm, 
fire-lighted kitchen. “ I couldn’t somehow 
rest quiet till I knew she was safe at home. 
Not as there ’s anything to be skeered 


Lost , 


281 


about,” for Mrs. Tilbury’s face was white 
with terror, “but it’s an ugly sort of night 
for a girl to be out in, and Dickson, as has 
just come from Warford, didn’t see nothing 
of her, though he came by way of the sta- 
tion. He says the snow ’s drifted pretty 
deep in parts, and he ’d a terrible job to find 
his way, though he comes that ' road every 
night of his life through taking the mail- 
bags in.” 

The farmer had not the least intention of 
frightening the women more than they were 
already, but he had that utter inability to 
weigh the effect of his words that many 
people suffer from. He had one auditor 
more than he reckoned on, for at the bottom 
of the stairs stood Joe, gaunt and white and 
hollow-eyed, clutching hold of the door to 
support himself, and drinking in every word 
the farmer said. 

“Bless my soul!” the farmer interrupted 


282 


Rose and Lavender . 


himself, catching a sudden glimpse of Joe; 
and, at the exclamation, the two women 
turned and echoed his words of surprise and 
horror with even greater emphasis. 

“ Why, Joe ! I never did ! How could you 
go for to do it ? And .you that weak and 
only out of bed to-day, and this room not 
half nor a quarter as warm as yours.” 

“I wanted to hear,” he said; “to know 
about Ruth.” 

He was not sorry, however, to lean on his 
mother as she helped him to a chair in the 
chimney-corner. 

“ Why could n’t you ’a’ sent Rosie ? What 
was the girl about letting you come, as 
might have slipped on the stairs or turned 
giddy ? That girl might ’a’ known as you 
did n’t ought to. ” 

“She’s asleep,” he said, with a little, 
wan smile, “ or I dare say she ’d have made 
bother enough.” 


Lost . 


283 


And who can wonder or blame Rosie, who 
had had a tiring and agitating day, if, sit- 
ting in the warm, silent room, and finding 
that her attempts at conversation were very 
poorly received, she had leaned her head back 
against the wall and fallen asleep, looking 
very pretty and fair and innocent, with her 
lips a little parted, and the long lashes 
showing dark on the round young cheek ? 

“ There, never mind about me. 1 ’m all 
right. There ’s been enough fuss made 
about me. It ’s Ruth we ought to be think- 
ing about. ” 

“Yes; that ’s just what I say,” the farmer 
said. “She ought to have been home long 
afore this ; and Dickson, he ’s come along the 
road and never seen aught of her, as shows 
pretty plain as she ’s lost her way. Well, 
there ’s no time to be lost. I Tl go back to 
the farm and fetch two of my men with lan- 
terns, and I Tl take my old Dan as has a 


284 


Rose and Lavender . 


nose to scent anything out, as there ’s not 
such another in the country round. — Why, 
bless your heart, my good soul ! ” he went on 
to Mrs. Tilbury, who with a trembling hand 
was reaching down her bonnet and shawl 
from its peg behind the door, “what good 
do you expect to do by going? Why, it 
would take us half our time to help you 
along. You ’d best bide at home, and get it 
comfortable for the lass when we brings her 
back. ” 

So Mrs. Tilbury had to be content with 
what so often falls to women’s share, to wait 
at home, listening and suffering and pray- 
ing, which, if we could but feel it, is not 
really being helpless, and is often “the 
better part.” 

Nothing would persuade Joe to go back to 
bed, and Mrs. Martin was too anxious her- 
self about Ruth to blame him for sharing her 
feeling, so she made him as comfortable and 


Lost . 


285 


warm as she could in the chimney-corner; 
and when Eosie made her appearance, much 
alarmed on waking to find the invalid had 
disappeared, she was despatched to bed with- 
out much ceremony, and Joe did not inter- 
fere to soften the sharpness which sounded 
in his mother’s tone. 


286 


Rose and Lavender. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE SEARCH. 

But fast the clouds formed up in heaven, 

Deep fell the darkening shade, 

Like curtain round the great white earth, 

And I did grow afraid. 

“ It ’s not a night for man or beast to be 
out in, ” was the unanimous opinion of every 
one that night, and yet there was not a cot- 
tage that the farmer passed on his way to the 
farm and, seeing a light burning, rapped on 
the window, and shouted out that “Mrs. 
Tilbury’s gal ’s missed her way from War- 
ford, and we ’re going to find her,” that did 
not turn out one or more to join the search 
party, though it meant pulling on thick, wet 
boots again, and in more than one instance 
getting out of a warm bed. 


The Search. 


287 


Some of the women would have gone too, 
if the farmer would have let them; but 
though they might not join the search, they 
could not rest in their beds for thinking of 
the poor soul lost out there in the snow and 
darkness, but gathered in groups round some 
central fireside, listening and shivering and 
wondering, one and all, of course, taking the 
gloomiest view of the prospect of finding her 
alive. 

“ It will be the death of her mother 
surely, as has always been a poor creature 
since her man was took ; and Mrs. Martin’ s 
said to me, times out of mind, as Ruth was 
just her right hand.” 

“ She ’ve broke a good deal this winter, 
have Mrs. Martin, though she ’s always 
been a hearty sort of woman, and active 
and striving. But Joe’s illness have 
told on her plain to see, and many ’s a 
time she ’s said to me, 4 Mrs. Styles, ’ says 


288 


Rose and Lavender . 


she, ‘I feels of it in my back terrible 
a-times. ’ ” 

“And washing’s certain sure to tell on 
the legs sooner or later; and though she 
ain’t one to complain, I ’ve a-seen as she 
ain’t so able as she were. I knows what 
legs is myself, — I do ; so I can feel for 
any one.” 

And there was much talk about Ruth her- 
self. It was strange how one and all had 
some kindly memory of the girl whose life 
had seemed to run in such very narrow lines, 
taken up by such small commonplace matter- 
of-fact duties, only touching so few other 
lives in its monotonous course. Why, there 
were many others in Milling cleverer, 
quicker, more attractive in every way than 
Ruth, and yet, I fancy, there were few of 
whom every one would have spoken so 
kindly as of her. 

“ Do you mind how good she were to my 


The Search. 


289 


Billy when he broke his leg ? She come in 
every day, if it were just for a minute, to 
help shift him.” 

“ And she ’ve drawn a pail of water every 
blessed morning for old Widow Simpson, 
though goodness knows she ’ve had enough 
of it to do for theirselves since their pump 
froze. ” 

“She weren’t never one to think of her- 
self, and she weren’t never one neither to 
say much; but if you wanted something 
done, Ruth Tilbury were the person.” 

“And to think of that poor Joe Martin as 
every one made sure was going to die, and 
Ruth as never had a day’s illness, as I can 
mind, took sudden this way.” 

“ Why did n’t she come home in the cart 
with the farmer ? ” 

“ I don’t rightly know, but the farmer ’s 
in a terrible taking about it. He ’ll feel it 

pretty near as much as if ’t were one of his 
19 


290 


Rose and Lavender . 


own girls. Her father died doing his work, 
and he ’ve always took a deal of interest in 
Ruth and in Joe, too, for the matter of that; 
but Ruth were his favorite, being so old- 
fashioned and steady from a child, as there 
ain’t many of them sort nowadays.” 

So the women talked, but in the cottage 
by the pond the hearts were too full for 
speech. Joe closed his eyes that his mother 
might think he was asleep, but through his 
mind went thronging memories of the count- 
less little acts of unselfish kindness that he 
had taken as a matter of course from Ruth. 
They were of such constant occurrence that 
he had ceased to notice them, he hardly ever 
even said “ Thank you ” to Ruth. 

Rosie had not told him much of what had 
happened that day, but he had gathered what 
he had guessed before, that Ruth had gone into 
Medington on purpose to see Rosie. “If it 
had n’t been for me, she ’d never have gone,” 


The Search. 


291 


he told himself ; and when his mother blamed 
Rosie for having taken Ruth’s seat in the 
cart and left her to come home by train, 
Joe held out his hand imploring silence, 
which his mother construed into his dislike 
to hear Rosie blamed, but it was really 
because he felt that the blame was his. 

“I ’ll tell her,” he said, and then stopped 
and covered his face with an irrepressible 
groan. Tell her ? It was too late. After 
the hours out in the snow, what hope was 
there that she would ever be able to hear a 
word of all the love and thanks his heart 
seemed bursting with ? Why had he not 
spoken before ? This feeling had not sprung 
suddenly into existence, it had been growing 
all those long days of illness, when her 
patience and untiring kindness had been so 
constantly before him; but it had become 
such a habit to accept it all as a matter of 
course from her, that he had never made any 


292 


Rose and Lavender . 


difference in his treatment of her, and, in- 
deed, he had hardly realized what he felt till 
now when it was too late. 

‘‘And she ain’t even got her shawl!” 
sobbed Mrs. Tilbury, smoothing the gray 
shawl that hung to dry near the fire, “and 
dear! dear! such a bitter night!” 

“Why hasn’t she got it?” asked Joe, al- 
most fiercely. 

“Why, she put it round Rosie, thinking 
as she’d find it cold driving. Dear, dear! 
she ’s always a-thinking of other folks, but 
she didn’t ought to ’a’ done it, and such a 
night as ’t is ! ” 

Joe remembered when Ruth had chosen 
that shawl how he had made fun of its dull, 
old-womanish, gray color, and had laughed 
at her for choosing a shawl when other girls 
wore jackets and cloaks of more modern 
fashion. But Mrs. Tilbury, -as she sat all 
drawn up together in that agony of suspense 


The Search . 


293 


and anxiety, seemed to find it a sort of com- 
fort to smooth that shawl between her trem- 
bling hands, and to rub her cheek softly up 
and down upon it; and once, when no one 
noticed, Joe put out his thin, wasted hand 
and touched the shawl almost reverently, as 
if it had been something sacred. 

I really think the search party out in the 
bitter cold though they were had the best 
time of it. It is so much easier to be up 
and doing than to sit still and wait, and 
though they got cold and numb, and plunged 
into snowdrifts up to their waists, and got 
their beards and clothes frozen crisp and 
hard, and though the sharp air nipped their 
noses and ears, and made their skin smart 
and tingle, there was a sort of excitement 
and sense of adventure about it, with the 
lanterns flashing hither and thither, and the 
voices calling to one another, and now and 
then, in spite of the ever-increasing fear and 


294 


Rose and Lavender . 


anxiety, there was a laugh when one or other 
slipped or floundered in the deep snow. 

The wind had heaped up the snow in great 
drifts against some of the hedges, and blown 
it into strange shapes that sometimes, when 
the lights first flashed on them, looked like 
huddled human shapes that more than once 
called forth a cry of terrified recognition. 

They searched carefully along the road, 
and the ditches and waste places on either 
side of it to Warford Station, which was all 
shut up and deserted, as the last train for the 
night had gone, and no other stopped there 
till eight next morning. The porter, whose 
cottage was a little way beyond the station, 
was roused with much difficulty from his 
well-earned sleep, and he told how Ruth had 
left the station four hours before. 

“And she didn’t seem a bit skeered, but 
set off as chirpy as anything. 4 1 ’m all 
right,’ says she; ‘good-night.’ Them was 


The Search. 


295 


her very words, for I says to myself, says 
I, ‘Well, you’re a plucky one, and no 
mistake. ’ ” 

This put an end to the hope that had been 
growing in the farmer’s mind, as they ap- 
proached the station, that Ruth might have 
stopped in Medington; and they set off at 
once to renew the search, dividing parties 
now, and going farther afield to right and 
left, the porter joining the party. 

It was no use looking for footprints or 
traces, for the snow had fallen without 
intermission, till just now when it had 
stopped, and through a rift in the clouds 
some steel-cold stars looked out. It was the 
party that went to the left with the farmer 
who found her, but it was not till they had 
pretty nearly lost hope, and thought of turn- 
ing back to see if the other party had been 
more successful. She could not have wan- 
dered so far from the road, the farmer said, 


296 


Rose and Lavender. 


for the rough stone cattle-shelter they were 
approaching was quite three quarters of a 
mile from the Warford road. But there, 
crouched down against the side of it, they 
found her, with her head bent forward on 
her folded arms, as if she had been trying 
to shelter her face from the driving snow. 

She had missed her path at the bit of 
open heath, and had gone some distance be- 
fore she discovered she was wrong, and then 
had tried to turn and retrace her steps, and 
had got confused, as was natural in the snow 
and darkness, and had wandered farther 
from the road. She fell once or twice, and 
got into deep snow, and was getting tired 
and exhausted, and for the first time a little 
frightened, and beginning to lose heart, and 
to feel as if she never should get home to the 
little, warm kitchen and to Mother and Joe; 
and a little bitter feeling came into her 
heart that Joe would not care now he had 


The Search. 


297 


Rosie, and that they two were sitting to- 
gether in the warmth and light. “ How well 
that new lamp do burn, for sure ! ” Little, 
irrelevant, trifling thoughts came to mix 
with the others, as she stumbled on, and 
sometimes she fancied she was at home and 
talking to one or another, and she spoke aloud 
more than once. She was going upstairs, 
it seemed to her, to Joe to give him that 
message of Rosie’s, — up ! up ! up ! What 
a long way it was, and how steep! and at 
last she had to call out the message, for she 
could not get up to the top, try ever so, and 
Joe was wanting so much to hear it. 

“Joe!” she called, “Joe! Rosie sends 
her love; she ain’t forgot you.” 

And then she fell, and it was a hard busi- 
ness to get up again, and it seemed to her, 
for her mind was getting confused and dull, 
that it would be less trouble to lie still, for 
Mother would be sure to come and find her. 


298 


Rose and Lavender. 


But presently she was on her feet again, and 
stumbling on; and when she came to the 
shed where there was some sort of shelter, 
she stopped, and tried to collect her senses, 
and remember where 'she was, and if she 
could recall where this shed stood on the 
road to the station. She would sit down 
just for a minute, and rest before she went 
on. And then, all at once, it was bedtime, 
and Mother was calling her to go to bed; 
and, indeed, she was very sleepy, but she 
must not go to sleep till she had said her 
prayers and the hymn, Joe’s favorite, — 

u Guard us waking, guard us sleeping, 

And when we die. 

May we in thy mighty keeping 
All peaceful lie.” 

It seemed to Ruth that the air was full of 
the soft wings of those angel guards, flutter- 
ing, hovering round her. 

And then she went to sleep. 


Sweetest Lavender. 


299 


CHAPTER XX. 

SWEETEST LAVENDER. 

True love ’s the gift which God has given 
To man alone beneath the heaven. 

It is the secret sympathy, 

The silver link, the silken tie, 

Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, 

In body and in soul can bind. 

Scott. 

“Come, clear out, all you menfolk! The 
women must have their turn now. Dead ? 
Why, bless your heart ! she ’s not dead. I 
felt her heart beat as strong as anything, 
and we got some brandy down her throat. 
You must undress her before the fire, and 
wrap her in blankets, and go on rubbing her. 
The doctor will be here in a minute ; I sent 
Tom for him. Now, look here, Joe, don’t 
you hinder them. I tell you the girl ’s 


300 


Rose and Lavender. 


going to come to. 1 ’ve not lived to seventy 
without knowing death when I see it. And 
I ’m going just to take you upstairs to your 
room, and there you ’ll stay. And if you ’ll 
take my advice, you’ll go to bed and not 
make more trouble by getting ill again.” 

And the farmer, who was nearly beside 
himself with excitement and anxiety, vented 
some of it in scolding Joe, and scolded him 
upstairs and into bed, and if it had been 
possible, would have scolded him to sleep; 
but as he could not do that, he stumped up 
and down the little bedroom, making the 
boards creak and the window rattle, in a 
perfect fever to know what was going on 
down below, where low voices, one of them 
the doctor’s, sounded, but too subdued to 
carry any meaning either for hope or fear 
to the listeners upstairs. 

Both to Joe and the farmer that time 
seemed interminably long, but at last it 


Sweetest Lavender . 


301 


came to an end; the door at the bottom of 
the stairs opened, and the doctor’s step 
sounded on the stairs. The first sight of 
his face was enough to tell Joe that the news 
he brought was good, and Joe rolled over on 
his bed and covered his face with the clothes, 
and burst into uncontrollable crying, while 
the farmer, not so quick at reading expres- 
sion, waited for the words, “ She ’s coming 
round nicely.” I think there were tears 
very near the old farmer’s eyes, and I know 
that his voice was very husky, but he turned 
on Joe with much indignation. 

“What are you crying for, you young 
idiot?” he said. “Any one would think 
the girl was dead to hear you going on so ! ” 

And then he was fain to wipe his own 
eyes and to blow a trumpet blast on his nose 
to conceal the fact. 

“It has been a very near thing,” the doc- 
tor said, “ and the greatest care will have to 


302 


Rose and Lavender. 


be taken for some time. She was not found 
a minute too soon, I can tell, and she ’ll 
have to thank you, Mr. Cartright, for saving 
her life.” 

The farmer was still busy with his pocket- 
handkerchief, but he shook his head. “It 
were n’t me. We ’ll all have some thanks 
to say to-night, eh, Joe, my lad ? where 
thanks is due.” 

“ You ’re right, Mr. Cartright,” the doctor 
answered; “we’re too apt to lose sight of 
the fact that we are only the means the 
Lord uses.” 

It was, as the doctor said it would be, a 
very long time before Ruth recovered from 
the effects of that night; indeed, I doubt if 
she will ever be quite the same again. For 
days she lay perfectly prostrate in mind and 
body, hardly appearing to notice what was 
passing round her; and as Joe, too, was none 
the better for the excitement and exertion of 


Sweetest Lavender. 


303 


that day, the two mothers had enough to do 
to look after them ; but neither of them was 
at all sorry when Rose Bailey announced her 
intention of going home at the end of the 
week. 

“She ain’t one bit of good,” Mrs. Martin 
said viciously, when Rosie had let the fire 
out and could not manage to light it, “ and 
I do believe it worries Joe to see her about. 
He ’s a deal quieter and less bothersome 
when she ’s out of the way, and as long as he 
knows we ’re with Ruth, and she ’s going on 
all right, he don’t want nothing, but amuses 
hisself, and don’t seem one bit dull. And 
I’m just afraid to let her go into Ruth’s 
room as she ’s that fidgety she can’t sit still 
for a moment. ’T would be different, too, if 
she could put her hand to anything down- 
stairs, but I never did see such a useless, 
good-for-nothing — ” Words failed Mrs. 
Martin to express her contempt for a girl who 


304 


Rose and Lavender. 


could not even light a fire, and I am afraid 
she did not make the couple of days Rosie 
spent at Milling particularly pleasant. 

“I don’t think I really could have put up 
with Mrs. Martin,” Rosie used to say in 
days to come when she had made a fresh 
start elsewhere, and the troubles at Miss 
Featherly’s were things of the past. “There 
was a good deal that I liked in Joe, but he 
was too soft for my taste and a lot too slow. 
But his mother was a regular old vinegar 
cruet, with a tongue as long as my arm; so 
I think I had a lucky escape.” 

And so his mother thought had Joe. In 
the long nights of fever that followed the 
days of prostration, Ruth used to go over and 
over again that night in the snow, and con- 
stantly on her lips was that message for Joe, 
the birthday present which she had endured 
so much to get for him. “ She sends her love, 
and she ain’t forgot you, Joe,” over and over 


Sweetest Lavender. 


305 


again in the strange, unnatural tones of 
fever, till Joe, listening on the landing, 
stopped his ears that he might not hear the 
message that was meant to be such a pleas- 
ure to him, and now hid fair to break his 
heart. 

Joe was well and at work again before 
Ruth could even be said to be out of danger, 
and the first job he did was to finish that 
pair of shoes which had been untouched for 
six months, though the day he did it, it 
hardly seemed probable that Ruth would live 
to wear them. 

But she did, and she wore them that very 
first day, a soft balmy March day, when she 
went out for the first time, and holding Joe’s 
arm on one side, and her mother’s on the 
other, got as far as the gate, even that short 
distance seeming quite an undertaking, mak- 
ing it necessary to stop a few minutes before 

she could manage the return journey. 

20 


306 


Rose and Lavender . 


The snowdrops were over; and Ruth, with 
a strange fancifulness, unlike her own self, 
was rather glad, — they were too like their 
namesake, white and cold and deathlike. 
But all along the border the sun had opened 
wide the golden crocuses’ warm, glowing 
cups ; and under the apple-tree was a clump 
of daffodils, shining in the sun in all their 
exquisite grace and glory. 

Joe had picked her a great bunch of fra- 
grant violets; and as he tied them up with 
their fresh, shiny, young, green leaves, he 
added a few of the gray-green leaves of the 
lavender, though it had not yet shot afresh. 

“ We were almost afraid,” he said, “that 
the snow had broken half the old lavender 
bush off; it was weighed down pretty near 
to the ground, but I ’ve tied it up, and it 
looks pretty well all right now.” 

“It would n’t have mattered much,” said 
Mrs. Tilbury; “it’s such a lumbering, awk- 


Sweetest Lavender . 


307 


ward old thing; but ’twas a terrible pity 
as that rose-tree on the porch were killed 
right down to the root.” 

“Don’t matter about the lavender ? ” said 
Joe. “Why, there’s not a flower in the 
garden as comes anywhere near the lavender, 
to my way of thinking.” 

Dear readers, I think you all know as well 
as I do, that there was a wedding at Milling 
that summer; and if stories in real life can- 
not quite end as fairy tales do, — that they 
lived happy ever after, — I think Ruth and 
Joe are likely to come as near to this happi- 
ness as is possible in this troublesome world, 
for unselfish love makes sunshine in the 
darkest day. 


THE END. 




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CASTLE BLAIR: 

A STORY OF YOUTHFUL DAYS. 

By FLORA L. SHAW. 

i 6 mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 

“ There is quite a lovely little book just come out about children, - • 
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HECTOR: A Story. 

By FLORA L. SHAW, 

Author of “Castle Blair,” “Phyllis Browne,” “A Sea 

Change.” 

With Illustrations. i6mo. Cloth. Price $i.oo 


“ It is perhaps enough to say of ‘ Hector ’ that it is by the author rf * Castle 
Blair,’ which had in it the best description of a noble child that Ruskin ever read, 
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one good book, it does not necessarily iollow that she can write another. But 
Flora L. Shaw has proved herself capable of going on as bravely as she began. 
* Hector’ is a charming story. It turns upon the interest which the boy Hector 
and Zelie took in the love affairs of two older people, one of whom is threatened 
with a marriage wholly distasteful to her. Elector and Zelie resolve that this 
shall never be, and to prevent it they go off together in search of the absent 
lovers, and have some sad adventures, but do finally accomplish that for which 
they set out. Everything ends happily, even to a glimpse that Hector and Zelie 
will some day be everything to each other. The charm of the story is even more 
in its way of being told than in its general conception.” — Christian Register. 

Hector,’ by Flora L. Shaw, is a beautiful little tale of child life, abounding 
with lovely glimpses of rural scenery, and fragrant with sweetness of feeling and 
tenderness of sentiment. Its tone is pure and fresh, and the story it tells is as 
unhackneyed as it is fascinating. Its more vigorous incidents are related with 
uncommon power, but it is in the delineation of character, and chiefly in that of 
its heroine, by whose lips the recital is given, that its chief charm is to be found. 
It is a book for both young and old to read with genuine pleasure.” — Saturday 
Evening Gazette. 

“This is something more than a story for children, although children are the 
chief characters. The scene is France, and we pass in review the status of the 
peasant, the small proprietor, the smith, gamekeeper, physician, and noble in 
a French country neighborhood. Yet all is brought in naturally and without 
effort. The story is pleasantly told in the words of a little French girl, whose 
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PHYLLIS BROWNE. 

By FLORA L. SHAW, 

Author of “ Castle Blair,” “ Hector,” “ A Sea Change.” 

With Illustrations. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 


Castle Blair ’ and 4 Hector’ are such good stories that a third, by the same 
author, Flora L. Shaw, will be equally welcomed. 4 Hector ’ was one of the most 
charming books ever written about a boy. ‘ Phyllis Browne ’ is the new story. 
She is evidently the author’s ideal girl, as Hector was her ideal boy, and a noble, 
splendid girl she is. Yet the book is not a child’s book; it is about children, but 
not for them. The story is far more interesting than most novels are, and fax 
more exciting. The rash generosity of the children is beautiful ; their free, 
trustful lives are noble and sweet ; but when they undertake to right social 
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established wrongs of society, they come to grief, but in no common-place way. 
Their dangers are as unusual and on as large a scale as their characters and cour- 
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and brings back the splendid dreams of one’s own youth,” says the Boston Corre- 
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“ This story describes characters and scenes which are probably common 
enough in the lines of the life-experiences of many. It does not openly inculcate 
any religious truth, or any particular phase of morality, but a healthy moral may 
be seen between the lines as the reader goes along. We have a warm attachment 
for our heroine, and a deep interest in her from our first to our closing meeting. 
Her lovely character and her successful efforts to guide the gentle and sweet- 
tempered, but sometimes wayward, Ladislas unto the path of rectitude, and to 
keep him there, are all delightfully and graphically portrayed. Ihe plot is an 
unusually interesting one, and is well sustained throughout ; the characters are 
delineated in a masterly way, and the story will be read with unabated interest 
and pleasure.” — Chicago Interior. 


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A SEA CHANGE. 

By FLORA L. SHAW, 

Author of “ Castle Blair,” “ Hector,” “ Phyllis Browne. 

With Illustrations. i6mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 


* r A chaste, simple, and interesting story, of a pure and pleasing literary style, 
is * A Sea Change,’ by Miss Flora L. Shaw. It is of the class of stories that 
come from the pen of Miss Yonge, and when this is said, enough is said by way of 
commendation. The heroine is a young girl who, when a child, was washed 
ashore upon the coast of Cornwall. The mission of this little book is one for 
sound, simple living, and its lesson one of a sweet life and a loving heart, which 
is beyond all price.” — Boston Herald. 

“ The very clever author of 1 Castle Blair ’ has added another to her list of ex- 
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but old people as well. We heartily recommend this story.” — The Churchman. 

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worldly mother and father, is equally well portrayed. The characters are well 
sustained, and are the natural result of the surrounding influences ; the portraits 
are deftly painted, and the lights and shades of human life are photographed with 
a keen perceptive power. ‘ A Sea Change ’ is not up to the standard of ‘ Castle 
Blair,’ but it is none the less a delightful story for boys and girls, and almost 
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“ Among the multitude of minor novels which are now appearing (for what but 
minor novels are well-written stories for the young?), the freshest and pleasantest 
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who has a special and uncommon talent in writing these delightful productions. 
She has a grace, a tenderness, and a pathos which we find in no American woman 
in the same b}'-path of letters ; and if we may judge of the effect of her lively 
little fictions upon young people by their effect upon ourselves, they are not only 
charmed while they read her books, but are happier and better for having read 
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